WEBVTT - Balloons in Space! 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.080 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:14.400 forward thinking. I'll pay there, and welcome to forward thinking. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.239 But podcast then looks at the future and says Helton 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:22.759 Zick for Captain Kirk Doscabin, gross work. I'm Jonathan, I'm Lauren, 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.680 and I'm Joe McCormick. Hi, everybody, Hi Joe. I have 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.240 a question. You always do well. The last time I checked, 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.000 none of us in this room had been to space. 0:00:34.280 --> 0:00:36.599 But that was a while ago. Yeah, that's true. Has 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.800 anybody been to space yet? I have not been to space, Jonathan. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:42.640 I have also not been to space. Have you been 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:48.640 to space? Space? Noel has also not been to space. 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.360 What a bummer, Jonathan. You even kind of looked like 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.920 the star baby. I know, I know, it's uh, you know, 0:00:56.280 --> 0:01:00.040 it's I also built a monolith in my yard. My 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:04.600 neighbors are crazy mad because we have a shared communal space. 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:07.080 So are they so crazy mad that they like beat 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.920 you with giant bones? They they have been there, they're 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.120 certainly working up to it. Okay, Yeah, Well, we've talked 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.399 about space tourism before because everybody kind of wants to 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.280 go to space. But there's a problem that it's not 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.000 so easy to get there. It's not so cheap to 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:25.120 get there. Yeah, right, well, that would be one of 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.800 the subsets. Yeah, I think. I think if you were 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.200 to be truly like nail it down to the number 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.880 of people who have been space tourists, that it's it's 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.320 fewer than ten as I recall something like seven people 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.760 one person, maybe more like twelve. I don't know, it 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.800 depends on who you count. But most of the people 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.800 who have been to space have been professional astronauts, people 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.800 who really know what they're doing. Yeah, But amateurs want 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:54.240 to go to space too. Yeah. So space tourism is 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.960 clearly on the way. There's a demand for it, and 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:00.520 so somebody's going to find a way to see apply it. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.920 But there are still problems because it's going to be 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:09.919 really expensive. Rocket launches are costly and somewhat dangerous. Are 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.000 we going to have a space elevator soon? We've talked 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.560 about that. It would be pretty cool, but it's probably 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.720 if it will ever exist, it's a long long way 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.960 off right there. They're fundamental difficulties with that technology. One 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:26.000 the big ones, yeah, find finding fighting material that has 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:31.679 the tensile strength to be secure as a tether from 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:36.359 the Earth to some object in orbit upon which an 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.720 elevator could climb. It's it's a non trivial problem. Yeah, 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.480 that's to say the least. So are there any other 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.280 alternative ways we could think about getting people to have 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:53.160 that space tourism experience without depending on the super expensive, 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.440 dangerous rocket launches or waiting for some kind of crazy 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:02.440 technology to emerge. How about catapults? Guys, that was the 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:08.560 first one that was I think, I think there's something 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.560 to this. Well, someone else wrote it down. I just 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.160 I just went with it because, Okay, what's arguably the 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:16.720 world's largest trebiche, which is a replica from old Danish designs. 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.680 It's housed in Warwick Castle, and you might have guessed Warwickshire, 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:26.680 England consend stuff flying nearly a thousand feet that's some 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.960 three hundreds and it only takes a team like an 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.320 hour to prepare the equipment for launch. So that's like 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.280 efficiency right there compared to the space perfect you just 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:42.600 have those like at three intervals in how close is 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:45.960 that to space? I guess far away. I guess we'll 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.680 find out in a bit y. Yeah, I've got some 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.560 other proposed alternatives to chemical rockets like the Mario super Jump. 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.360 I'll him saying, ok, I look, I'm not I'm not 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:58.880 against it. In fact, I was just talking to the 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:02.000 director of the George Renaissance Festival about the fact that 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:05.280 there needs to be a catapult ride. Although clearly one 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.160 of the important questions you would ask the person before 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.040 they are aimed at the net is hey, have you 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.400 had anything to eat today? Because that's that's going to 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:16.680 affect our calculations. Um but no, I wanted to talk 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.320 about some of the actual alternative proposals for chemical rockets, because, 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:24.920 as we have pointed out, they are expensive and dangerous potentially, 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:27.919 so we have to look and see if there's something 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.400 else that we could use for getting stuff from Earth 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.200 into space. And there's been a lot of hypothetical proposals 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.600 or the proposals are real, but it's all based on hypothesis. 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.760 They're they're essentially in the same level of reality as 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:45.240 the space elevator. I'm a little loopy, um but no. 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:50.280 These include the cable space accelerator, which imagine this, You've 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.280 got a ramp. It doesn't have to be a ramp, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.880 but the most common version I've seen as a ramp, 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.159 and you have a series of drive motors in that ramp. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.040 The drive motors can attach to a cable and pull 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.440 the cable up the ramp, and after the cable passes 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:08.920 the drive motor, it essentially gets a handoff to the 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:13.000 next drive motor. Each drive motor in that series is 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.960 moving at a faster rpm, so it's pulling the cable 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.840 faster each time. The other end of the cable is 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.920 attached to a vehicle, preferably a winged one, and then 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:25.920 when the winged one gets to the end of the ramp, 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.359 by that point it's moving at a hypersonic speed and 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.000 can direct itself more and a more vertical orientation and 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:39.240 thus escape the bonds of earth um without having to 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.880 use chemical rockets for the initial launch. Okay, cool, Yeah, 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.159 so sort of the same way that us. Some aircraft 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.000 use a traditional launch pattern to get them to like 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:54.839 normal feet cruising altitude, and then uh, we'll use a 0:05:54.880 --> 0:06:00.000 secondary booster to go super fast, or even a military 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:04.040 jet on a on like an aircraft carrier where they 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:07.919 can have it's it's essentially a catapult system to accelerate 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.080 them at at really high speed so they can take 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:14.000 off and a shortened runway, same sort of thing, but 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:18.880 you know, kind of ramped up a notch. So then 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.359 you have also an idea called a circle launcher and 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:27.360 space keeper, which honestly I have Actually it's actually from 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.560 there is a proposal and you can there's a Google 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.480 books has a PDF of the entire thing, and it's 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.839 incredibly long, and the physics got so complicated that I 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.680 stopped reading. So I know that it's it's got a 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.400 cable that when it spins, it creates a circle, and 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:48.720 then uh, there's a a launch tube thing in the 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:51.200 center of this circle, and then stuff gets launched through 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.800 centrifugal force. That does not sound like it would be 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:58.640 ideal for you know, human occupants, maybe cargo, But I 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.560 can't imagine going on. Like have you guys ever been 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:04.120 to one of those amusement parks like six Flags that 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.640 has something like the wheelie. It spins horizontally and then 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.440 the arm comes up so that you're spinning upside down vertically. Yea, yeah, 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.960 I can't imagine using that to get into space. I 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.960 can't imagine using that on the ground. Yeah. I rode 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:19.600 one of those. I rode one of those two times 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:21.440 in a row once and that was probably one of 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.040 my greatest failures as as a human being, It was 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.520 making that decision, because they ruined the rest of the day. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.280 Then they're also proposed magnetic lift systems, but a lot 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:37.640 of them would require incredible engineering, like digging forty kilometers 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:43.400 down into the ground to create enough runaway. Yeah. For 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.200 the magnetic thrust, you would need to get up into space, 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:52.040 which already non trivial problem. Yeah, so, as you've pointed out, 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.240 basically all of these are about on the same level 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:59.440 as the space elevator. Yeah. They think things that may 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.640 one day work if we have some technological breakthroughs, but 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:07.080 they may even be practical. Like, even if they work 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:09.680 doesn't necessarily mean it's practical, Right, it may end up 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.640 being where sure it works, but the amount of money 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.000 and energy or anything else that we pour into it 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:20.160 dwarfs whatever a rocket launch would be, thus negating the 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.120 effectiveness of that technique. Well, I've got another proposal. Proposal, way, 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.000 I want to get a little more Wizard of Oz. Okay, Yeah, 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:30.160 I don't think that we're paying enough due to technology 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:34.000 that was dreamed about in the late eight I got it, 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.200 I got it. You're gonna say flying monkeys on a 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.520 flying monkey today. You know how about balloons? You're floating 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.960 up into space in a balloon, going, I can't sit up, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:49.320 and I don't know how it works. Yeah, that's an 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.960 interesting and interesting idea. And the reason why we're even 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.079 mentioning this, and we'll go into more detail as the 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.560 episode goes on, is because there are a couple of 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:03.240 different companies that have been looking into using balloons as 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.920 a means of taking people up to high altitudes in 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.600 what they're calling space tourism. So how realistic is that? 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:15.600 How high can balloons go? Can they get us to space? Well? 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:21.920 The Federation Aeronautique into Nacional, which overseas Aeronautic records, defines 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:25.600 space as beginning at one hundred kilometers above sea level, 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.000 which is a little more than sixty two miles, right, 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.000 That's where space begins, according to that organization. The US 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.600 Air Force defines it differently, saying that it's fifty miles 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.520 above sea level, which is a little more than eighty kilometers. 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:43.880 So there's a twenty kilometer difference there, which actually, interestingly enough, 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:48.040 has caused some problems because there were some some early 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:52.679 test pilots who flew above the fifty mile mark or 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.280 the eighty kilometer mark, but below the one kilometer mark, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.120 So did they earn their astronaut wing or not? And 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:02.920 that was actually a big problem for a long time. 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:07.400 Eventually the government said, give him the astronaut wings. Would 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:12.320 have been funny if the right right, Yes, you went, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:16.200 you went incredibly high, try again later, but not high enough. 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.080 So why one kilometers? Well, it's called the Karman line, 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:22.160 and at that height the air is so thin that 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.320 it does not create sufficient lift for an aerodynamical vehicle 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.239 to maintain flight. Right, So you couldn't take an airplane 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.280 with wings up there exactly, it would It would not 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:33.760 have any lift. It would start to fall until it 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:38.320 reached a denser atmosphere. So, in atmospheric terms, this puts 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:42.080 the beginning of space at Earth's thermosphere. But you know, 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.520 you know your levels of the atmosphere, right, the thermosphere 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.400 is pretty far out there. That starts at around eighty 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.000 five kilometers above sea level and ends around the five 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.079 hundred to one thousand kilometer range, which I know that 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.360 sounds like it's a huge range. It's five kilometers. How 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.480 could it be like so nebulous. Well, it largely depends 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:02.480 upon external factors like polder activity. Now, the level above 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.680 the thermosphere is the exosphere, which is an area that 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.800 has molecules that are gravitationally bound to the Earth, but 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.959 they are so far apart from one another that they 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.960 don't act like a gas. They're all individual particles essentially, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:21.120 so very very thin layer. Here below the thermosphere is 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.000 the miso sphere, which is between fifty and eighty kilometers, 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:26.360 and then below that is the stratosphere, which is between 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:29.679 ten and fifty kilometers, and then below that is the troposphere, 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.160 which is the lowest level. That's where weather occurs. So 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.160 those are your basic levels. And when you look at 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:39.880 those levels, you might ask, well, where where did the 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.760 balloons go? Like how high can the balloons go in 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:45.640 that that scale. I'm guessing they can't get you all 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.600 the way out to the exosphere. You would guess correctly, 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.040 because balloons, by their nature, are based on the equilibrium 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:56.240 between the density of the gas inside the balloon versus 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:00.439 what's outside. It floats up because it is less dents 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.840 than the atmosphere. And then you also have other other 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:06.240 factors as well that we'll talk about like air pressure, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.319 which becomes really important. Ter On, and the weight of 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.600 the material that the balloon is made of also very important. Yeah, 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:16.160 and gold balloons just don't go very high. No, but 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.120 you know what, Adam and Jamie on MythBusters had a 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.960 lead balloon and they made it float. They can do anything. 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:25.520 Did they explode it afterwards? I don't think they did. 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:31.560 Know they shot it with a cow. Yeah. Anyway, So 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:35.800 in October two thou fourteen, Alan you Stays, a Google executive, 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.400 ascended to an altitude of about forty one kilometers, which 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.720 is about twenty five point five miles before detaching from 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:47.640 his balloon. Now that balloon was created by a company, right, Yeah, 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.920 called Paragon strat X. And you have to make a 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.760 fist when you say that names which Lauren did both. 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:56.960 You know, even when she was explaining that you have 0:12:57.040 --> 0:12:59.520 to do that, she did it again. Muscle mass bulk 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:06.200 up with dreat haagone stratic and yeah, he he his 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:08.920 was interesting, like his his approach was interesting. You know. 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:12.000 Felix baum Gartner also had gone very high up. This 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.040 was this was breaking baum Gartner's unofficial record. Baumgartner's record 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.560 has not yet been officially recognized by the international organization 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.199 I mentioned earlier. But baum Gartner went up in a capsule, right, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.480 and then he had a special suit. But he was 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.000 inside a capsule for most of his ascent, well for 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:31.559 his entire ascent, and then got out and jumped out 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.920 for his descent. You mean he was in a capsule 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:39.000 lifted by balloon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whereas uh Alan here 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.520 was wearing a special suit and that was kind of 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.280 what was connected to the balloon. It was kind of 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:48.560 neat as opposed to being, you know, inside a bigger thing. 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.680 His suit was the thing, which is kind of crazy. 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.960 That's either scarier or less scary, and I'm not actually sure. 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.840 And and of course baum Gardeners was very much publicized. 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.000 It was televised, It was It was amazing if you 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:04.040 watched it. You know what I'm talking about the moment 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.120 when he stepped out on the ledge before jumping out 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:13.080 was even for me sitting comfortably at home. Yeah, I 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.600 was white knuckled. Right whereas our our our friend from 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:21.040 Google uh did the jump and then talked about it 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.040 barely just he just wanted to do it. Um So 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.760 the suit he wore that you stay swar was designed 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:34.280 specifically so that he could uh explore the stratosphere, so, 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:37.240 you know, having the life support systems that would keep 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.600 him safe at that altitude. His parachute deployed at about 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:45.040 eighteen thousand feet, which is about five point five kilometers, 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:50.400 and he landed safely. Uh So even the bomb gardners, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.600 whose whose ascent, by the way, went up to thirty 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.960 nine kilometers or about twenty four miles. Uh you know, 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.000 both of these numbers, both of these these ascents incredible achievements, 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:05.040 phenomenal record breaking achievements. Yeah, way higher than I've gone. Yeah, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.080 I've never gone that high either. But if you've been 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.120 paying attention when I mentioned the earlier different levels of 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:16.120 the atmosphere, you'll realize these elevations are not anywhere close 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:20.600 to space. They're well inside the stratosphere, not quite halfway yeah, 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.600 well below that one kilometers and as you say, less 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:28.640 than halfway to that. So they are nowhere close to space, 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.880 although we often talk about them being taken to the 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.080 beginning of space. What about weather balloons, how high do 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:39.200 they go? Well, it depends upon the construction of the 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:43.640 balloon itself, but generally speaking they reach around the same 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.840 region that bomb Gartner and you stays went to the stratosphere. 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:49.320 So the average heights range from sixty thou feet to 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.600 a hundred to five thousand feet or eighteen to thirty 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.320 two kilometers, so they normally actually reach elevations below the 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.360 ones that bomb Gartner and you see went to, though 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:03.440 you can get them higher than that. What about those 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.560 balloons that you can those little kits that you can 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.360 buy to tie a camera to and send your camera 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:12.160 into space. Essentially we're talking about the same height as 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.320 the weather balloons, maybe sometimes lower because generally speaking, you're 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:21.160 probably not getting the super thin material balloons because you 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:24.160 have to be incredibly careful with that stuff. I mean, 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:28.080 it's incredibly delicate. But the reason why they make it 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.080 so thin and light is to is to maximize the 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.400 payload that the balloon can carry, so decrease the amount 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.560 of weight of the balloon itself so it can carry 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:40.280 more of a payload. Um, those camera ones probably are 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.200 not made the same at the same level as the 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.520 weather balloons. I'm sure you still have to be very 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.360 careful with them, but it probably doesn't get quite to 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.720 that altitude. The highest elevation reached by any balloon according 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.720 to what I could find, was fifty three kilometers, which 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.920 is nearly thirty three miles, which means that balloon actually 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.960 reached the Miso sphere, so it went above of the stratosphere, 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.520 above that halfway mark to space, but still well below 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.399 space itself. And this balloon was released in two thousand 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.240 two in Japan. It was unmanned obviously, and was made 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.400 of material that was about one sixth as thick as 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:20.640 your average plastic grocery bag. Wow. Yeah, if you ever 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.520 watched the the preparations that ballum Gartner had to go 0:17:24.600 --> 0:17:27.040 through before and ballum Gartner's team really had to go 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:31.479 through before the ascent, and you see them slowly laying 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.720 out the balloon. They are all being incredibly careful because 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.320 this stuff looks like it's like plastic wrap thin. I mean, 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.320 it's incredibly thin. Uh So, one of the reasons they 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.880 don't go any higher than that, apart from the density 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.639 issue that Joe brought up, is the air pressure issue. 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:52.280 The balloons expand as they go up, there's less and 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.320 less air pressure, and there's more temper there's higher temperatures 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:57.520 that higher elevations. We'll talk more about that in a 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:00.480 second too, and the combination of those being the balloon 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.800 gets bigger and bigger. So the balloon might be a 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.560 fairly impressive size at ground level, and then once it 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.720 gets to the altitude you're planning on it getting to, 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:13.639 it's going to be significantly larger. It's going to have 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:18.280 expanded quite a bit, probably just about capacity. Yeah, beyond that, 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:22.639 you have reached the tensile strength the elasticity of the material, 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.960 and balloons go pop. I wonder if that's what happens 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.480 to the balloons that are released at the county fair 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.680 and just float up and disappear. How high did those 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.880 balloons go? I guess it all depends on the size 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:41.800 of the balloon the howe, because if there's any kind 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.320 of leakage, it's gonna start to it's gonna start to 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.080 descend earlier. Um a lot of them do, I imagine, 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.520 get to an altitude where they just can't, you know, 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:53.000 they can't sustain themselves anymore, and they pop and then 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:54.879 they fall. I totally want to do a brain Stuff 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:57.480 episode about this, by the way, it would be pretty cool, 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:01.120 all right, that'll be awesome that everyone on YouTube has 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:04.680 not already done that. But yeah, you know, I think 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.000 I think that will be a great episode because again 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:09.400 it explains something that a lot of us don't think 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.000 about about what happens to the balloons, you know, the 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.159 ones that aren't tethered. What happens to them when they 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:18.360 continuously go up and there, if there's no venting mechanism, 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:20.960 what happens? And so it would be a great way 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.199 of explaining that they go to balloon Heaven. But at 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:28.119 any rate, well, hold on a second, why do we 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.280 start talking about this in the first place. It was 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.840 because we were investigating the idea of a company using 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:41.000 balloons for space tourism. Could someone do something that audacious? 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.399 Someone is, well, someone's planning on dining at the very least, 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.240 it hasn't happened quite yet. But there's this company called 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:54.680 Worldview that has has a plot, a terrific balloon plot. UM. 0:19:54.840 --> 0:20:00.000 So so Worldview purchased paragon strat x Is Balloon technolog 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.800 g back in UM and their their long term plan 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:08.400 here is to start conducting tourism flights via balloon. UM. 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.399 Passengers would enter a flight capsule attached to a safe 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:16.920 football stadium sized balloon that's a significant balloon um, after 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:19.320 about an hour and a half of a cent, they 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.800 would take a two hour tour of near space and 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:27.360 then glide down um for first using the balloon and 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:30.400 then with a parafoils help. A parafoil being the same 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.480 kind of stuff that that that Felix and um you 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.720 stay stays both bomb Gardner. I'm not on a name 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:42.040 basis with bomb Gardner. UM. Uh yeah, yeah, parafoil to 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.800 kind of glide back down parachute down to earth. Um. 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.560 They're marketing it as an alternative to a few things 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.240 to to reduced gravity aircraft flights which are shorter and 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:56.639 probably more stressful. That's what we colloquially call the vomit 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.640 comet um. And and these days it looks like they're 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.440 running pretty cheap, like like five to ten grands something 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.600 like that. Really, yeah, I can't The last time I 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.800 heard these were still being proposed as many tens of 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:12.119 thousands of dollars, and I had seen a couple of 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:14.240 years ago, I had seen it as low as twenty 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:17.960 which it makes sense to me that the price would 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:22.520 continually come down as as businesses could actually make a 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.000 business of it. Uh. Interesting little tidbit are our head 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.720 of creative here at hell stuff works. Jason Hoak has 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:34.280 been on the vomit comments. Yes, meanwhile, I'm like, I 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.320 wrote the article on that and I didn't get to go. 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.679 But but yeah, so so there's there's those things, and 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.360 then there's the actual go to space for a couple 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:49.000 of days at least space tour tourism kind of things, um, 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:52.200 which run you know somewhere between two and fifty thousand 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:57.240 and twenty million bucks and and require pretty extensive training. Yeah. 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.720 I don't know that there's anywhere currently that's even allowing 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:04.160 this to happen. I know the Russian Space program used 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:06.080 to and that's where the twenty million was going to. 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.280 Like people would pay twenty million bucks to get a 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.919 hitch a ride on the se US right go up 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:13.679 to the I S S. But I don't know that 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.960 they're still doing that. So uh. And I know that, 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.000 you know, like like virgin is planning on it. The 0:22:19.040 --> 0:22:22.680 ticket price that they're currently advertising is that two kind 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:29.639 of mark? Um, So it potentially exists. Um, but Worldview 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.959 is allowing reservations for this balloon flight at about seventy 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:37.480 dollars right now, so pretty steep, still pretty expensive, not 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:44.680 inexpensive um, but but cheaper than spending a week in space. Okay, 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:48.360 And if you are curious about how exactly this is working, 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.600 it goes something like this. The giant balloon is made 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.560 of polyethylene that's filled with helium, and helium, as you 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.439 may or may not know, is a total light element 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:03.120 like no umber two lightest elements ever. Well, why don't 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:06.200 they just use the number one lightest element ever? Because 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:12.440 that explodes because it burns with explosive force. Um. But 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.280 at any rate, it is lighter than our our mix 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.280 of air at sea level pressure certainly um. And so 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:21.800 if you put a bit of helium into an air tight, 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:26.280 lightweight balloon material, that balloon will float. You have probably 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:28.560 seen this in action. I'm assuming if you're listening to 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:31.320 a podcast, you've also seen a balloon. You're right, you've 0:23:31.320 --> 0:23:35.600 probably been to at least one child's birthday party or 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.680 you know, any kind of amusement park something where there 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:43.320 have been helium balloons present. Because it costs my birthday 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:48.639 parties had air filled balloons. That sounds like that episode 0:23:48.640 --> 0:23:51.080 of the I'm just kidding. We didn't have balloons at all, 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:55.520 all right. We just went to a sad place. I'm 0:23:55.520 --> 0:23:57.920 gonna keep talking about helium, all right, let's do that. 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:01.160 Um So, So, if if you let if you let 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:03.040