The $150 Space Camera: MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer-Money Budget

The two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth. Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems, they filled a weather balloon with helium and hung a styrofoam beer cooler underneath to carry a cheap Canon A470 compact camera. Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work.

The students website-space.1337arts.com...



This is a spanish students project cost 1350.00


This is awesome and only $150.00
Sorry for the Edits I suck at makeing post but enjoy
[edit on 16-9-2009 by s14mikeysr20]


[edit on 16-9-2009 by s14mikeysr20]

Wow!

That's completely awesome!

Give those guys a job at NASA and lets start saving money and get something done! Jeeeesh.

Well, this definitely shows something. someone with enough money, but not necessarily a fortune, could be doing recon work if needed.

Say, post major disaster?

Think about it. You can't get any signals from outside your location, there's a big flood, or a power outage, or you just don't know. It could be useful, and in a beneficial sense. lol. A wireless transmitter of some determinate range would need to be built instead of the phone though, for a disaster situation. But anyone capable in math with some knowledge of electronics could build one, and I'd guess for not much more than a cheap cell phone.

(or back to using the cell) We could send them to Japan and Canon could video tape their landing and take the pictures, and use them for advertisement. Anyone want to call them up and see if they want the marketing? $$$.

Way cool. Reminds me of the movie when I was a kid about a man in a lawn-chair with balloons to lift him in the air. the movie was not about that character but nonetheless, it is what I remember.

They even got a photo of a UFO (or not).
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 9/16/2009 by Phage]

Delete

[edit on 16-9-2009 by s14mikeysr20]

people have been doing this for years, the only thing thats ntoable here is the cost.

Where were they for the 912 protest.

They could have used some aerial photos.

The balloon would have been shot down, nothing to see here. Do you not listen to our head of propaganda Gibbs, there was no protest.