News By James Plafke Dec. 23, 2013 10:51 am
This holiday season, when you’re keeping tabs on Santa with the help of a*tracking and defense system, you may just wonder how Santa and his reindeer are able to travel to where the accompanying tracker shows. If the experiment of two amateur scientists are to provide the answer of Santa’s magical travel efficiency, it’s due to the jolly man’s ability to engage in suborbital flight. Mark Ireland and Cassie Phelps attached a weather balloon to the famous duo of St. Nick and Rudolph, and launched them into space.
After about two hours of floating up into the sky, Santa and Rudolph reached around 100,000 feet above the surface of Earth, capturing the journey along the way thanks to an attached camera.
The weather balloon was filled with helium, and it eventually popped, sending the Santa and Rudolph back to the ground. The little model deployed a parachute, so recovery of the Santaship was easy enough, though it did land about 70 miles away from its point of launch. The holiday spaceship is likely smaller than the up-close video makes it seem, as shown below accompanying a phenomenal bad Christmas sweater.
Though the project was as simple as tying a camera to a Santa model and subsequently tying that to a weather balloon, the video captured some breathtaking views. The curvature of the Earth showcased behind a tiny, cute Santa and Rudolph is as incredible as it is hilarious.
For more impressive amateur projects, head on over to Mark and Cassie’s project site.
Now read:*Santa Tracker gains Chromecast support for second screen fun
More...
After about two hours of floating up into the sky, Santa and Rudolph reached around 100,000 feet above the surface of Earth, capturing the journey along the way thanks to an attached camera.
The weather balloon was filled with helium, and it eventually popped, sending the Santa and Rudolph back to the ground. The little model deployed a parachute, so recovery of the Santaship was easy enough, though it did land about 70 miles away from its point of launch. The holiday spaceship is likely smaller than the up-close video makes it seem, as shown below accompanying a phenomenal bad Christmas sweater.
Though the project was as simple as tying a camera to a Santa model and subsequently tying that to a weather balloon, the video captured some breathtaking views. The curvature of the Earth showcased behind a tiny, cute Santa and Rudolph is as incredible as it is hilarious.
For more impressive amateur projects, head on over to Mark and Cassie’s project site.
Now read:*Santa Tracker gains Chromecast support for second screen fun
More...
