(Semiprofessional) Space Travel

Slashdot recently had an item about “Space On a Shoestring” reporting about three engineering students at Cambridge University who have planned to put a rocket into space for only Ã?â??Ã?£1000. They have sent their first space ship already to an altitude of 32km with the help of a helium balloon.Althoughh people argue, that that’s exactly what helium balloons are for (so whats special about it?), I think what they did is pretty cool. Not only because they have brought back those beautiful pictures but also because I’m sure they have learned quite a lot while preparing and realizing their mission.
What’s interesting is that in connection with this project, people are mentioning a lot other similar projects. I was quite impressed by all of them:

• The “High Altitude Glider Project” launched 5 times from 2001 to 2003. And they are planning to do it again: A Canadian Boffin – It’s not quite flying, closer to falling with style.
• The Stabilo Project, a professional European science project to create a “suborbital manned system”. They are using a solar balloon to overcome the first 22.000m. Then they launch the “hydrogen peroxide (85%) monopropellant rocket engine” to travel the rest of the way.
• Another project is the STRAPLEX project. It’s a program by the University of Porto that “offers students the possibility to send experiments for educational purposes into the stratosphere using balloons filled with Helium”.

Further information on the topic of high altitude balloons is provided here (Designing a High Altitude Balloon) and here (AMSAT & High Altitude Balloons), as Cherita Chen mentioned on slashdot.
And on the topic of “layers of atmosphere”, check out this wikipedia article. And there you can also read something about the difference between sub-orbital and orbital spaceflights.

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