Those pranksters from Zug have now gone to the edge of space, sending their own DIY satellite up to 89,000 feet above Earth, and doing a little Rickrolling along the way. They claim they have now pulled the famous prank on the entire planet. Hmmm, hopefully this wasn’t the source of the radio signals that caused ESA’s Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) probe to be “blinded from interference.” Surely strains of “Never Gonna Give You Up” could never do that….
The video above is a quick look at their balloon satellite launch and their results; here’s the whole story on Zug.
LOL, this is awesome!
Fun report, but you actually make it seem like they did it. I really doubt that. First, the balloon is way too small, then the wind noise when the package begins its descent (at 89,000 feet – wind noise?). Anyway, it was still fun to watch.
This one is actually most certainly legit (even taking into account the tongue-in-cheek nature of the project). It was shown before that this sort of thing can be done easily, and cheaply (the only real risk factor is having it land where you don’t want it to)
Haha! Good times. However…I didn’t know 89k feet = space. Isn’t it more like 300k+?
I’d like to see images of a near miss by a 747? ACK!
Brilliant. I just loved the US areoplane ident. picture on their page.
Why do these stories always say they have gone to “space”?! Not even close. Space is officially 100 km or 328083 feet! “Near Space” is the correct term normally used for these altitudes (60,000 to 120,000 feet).
For my part, even Spaceship 1 was not really a spaceship. It did reach the altitude, but was just a suborbital up and down. For me, if it don’t stay there, it ain’t space.
Near space it is!
From Wikipedia: “By one definition a sub-orbital spaceflight reaches an altitude higher than 100 km above sea level. This altitude, known as the Kármán line, was chosen by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale because it is roughly the point where a vehicle flying fast enough to support itself with aerodynamic lift from the Earth’s atmosphere would be flying faster than orbital speed.[1] The US military and NASA award astronaut wings to those flying above 50 miles[2] (80.47 km), although the US State Department appears to not support a distinct boundary between atmospheric flight and space flight.”
P.S. Space Ship 1 reached the unofficial altitude of 358,000 feet. That’s 67.8 miles (109.1 kilometers).