RALEIGH -- The first balloon vanished roughly 20,000 feet over Rolesville, and for all anyone knows, it's still dangling from a power line somewhere or hidden between rows of tobacco.
But the second helium-powered craft that Team TechShop NC launched into the stratosphere shot through the Sunday morning clouds and into the blackness of near-space, snapping a dozen shots of the Earth's curving blue horizon.
The team of amateur techno-hobbyists may have forfeited the nationwide ballooning contest Sunday when their first shot went astray. But the Triangle group managed to salvage the day with their second, just-for-kicks shot into near space, using a balloon scraped together from spare parts.
"It came down in Rocky Mount ... and landed in a tree," Team TechShop member Christopher Gorski wrote in an e-mail message. "We spent a while with ladders and poles trying to get it to come the last 60 feet to the ground."
The nationwide competition challenges groups 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.
National contest
About a dozen balloonist groups have until the end of August to launch and retrieve their balloons; many have already reported losing their homemade spacecrafts to the elements. Team TechShop had spent about five months preparing its balloon, which left North Raleigh's Horseshoe Farm Park in a hopeful trajectory but soon disappeared.
"The contest entry was a wash," said Gorski, citing short-lived disappointment.
It's hard to say just how high the second balloon rose; above 60,000 feet, the tracking hardware stops giving altitude. But it's clear from the pictures, which the team estimates were shot at 80,000 feet, that the balloon captured a view from the heavens.
