Raleigh balloon hobbyists aim for stratosphere

RALEIGH -- A team of dedicated techno-hobbyists will gather Sunday morning to launch a cheap, lightweight, helium-driven balloon into the stratosphere with the hope of photographing the blue horizon of Earth.

It's part of a high-minded national competition, and if Team TechShop NC can win, it'll bring home bragging rights as the country's best at do-it-yourself science.

They'll also get a trophy.

"We're just a ragtag band of hobbyists," said Christopher Gorski, 32, a software engineer from Raleigh. "Most of us are regular Joes with day jobs."

The idea is to send aloft one homemade balloon, as inexpensive and insubstantial as possible, shoot a picture of black sky surrounding blue Earth, then fetch the craft again once it bursts and floats to the ground via parachute.

The competition is a product of Workshop 88, a "hackerspace" that lets like-minded computer and electronics buffs share a place to experiment. About a dozen balloonist groups have until the end of August to launch and retrieve their balloons. At least one team reports reaching 97,000 feet, more than twice the cruising altitude of a passenger jet.

Team TechShop NC will fire its craft into near-space from Horseshoe Farm Park in northeast Raleigh.

To win, you've got to keep your balloon budget below $250. As of Wednesday, TechShop NC was hovering around $175, said Tanner Lovelace of Durham, also a software engineer.

But space travel, even unmanned near-space travel, makes frugality difficult. The Pittsburgh team came in at $247, including a Styrofoam cooler scavenged from the trash, its value estimated at $2.

Weight constraint

Competing balloons must be no heavier than 4 pounds. Beyond that, the only judging criterion is how fast you can retrieve your balloon.

Raleigh's model should stretch about 6 feet in diameter, and three times that just before it bursts. It's equipped with an on-board GPS receiver, and it's trackable from the ground with a Ham radio. TechShop NC is prepared to roam up to 50 miles to get back its traveling balloon.

This, too, can be troublesome.

Many members of the Washington, D.C., team considered their Spaceblimp lost despite a successful launch. "Unfortunately," wrote one member in an online account, "somewhere around 60,000 feet things seem to have gone a little wonky. ... The APRS data reported by the digipeaters that picked up the signal looks like a dog's breakfast."

TechShop NC welcomes spectators for its launch at 8 a.m. Sunday. But please: No shouting advice from the sidelines. DIY science is a solitary pursuit.