Ben's Grab Bag

themodernworld:

starrglimpse:

LEGO Minifig At The Edge Of Space on A Balloonprostheticknowledge:

LEGO Minifig At The Edge Of Space on A Balloon

Two teenage students build a balloon, mounted with four cameras and a LEGO figure, and launched it.

From thestar.com:

Two weeks ago, Ho and Muhammad launched a homemade balloon carrying a Lego passenger and four cameras. It fell back down to Earth 97 minutes later with astonishing footage from an estimated 24 kilometres above sea level, three times the typical cruising altitude of a commercial aircraft.

Their jerry-rigged contraption recorded the Lego man’s journey from a soccer pitch in Newmarket to the stratosphere — high enough to see their two-inch astronaut floating above curvature of our planet, clutching a Canadian flag with the blackness of space behind him.

The project cost $400 and took four months of free Saturdays. It wasn’t a school assignment. They just thought it would be cool.

“We didn’t really believe we could do it until we did,” says Ho.

More info about the story can be found here, photos here

The democracy of outer space

Wow. That’s really all I have to say.