BACKGROUND
My name is Joseph Hansen, and I am an 18 year old grade 12 student at the Constantia Waldorf School in Cape Town. Waldorf has an interesting curriculum and is unorthodox in today's society as students get the opportunity to understand and learn the world and their environment by seeing and doing, instead of reading what a textbook tells them. The final requirement for a student to obtain the Waldorf certificate is to undertake an individual project of his or her choosing, that challenges them unlike anything before.
This is where my story comes in. I am passionate about space and what lies beyond the boundaries of this Earth, and this project is an opportunity to explore this avenue. Of course it is nearly impossible for a student, especially from South Africa, to try and reach space with our current technology, as it is just too expensive. However, it is possible to reach the edge of space. This is done by use of meteorological weather balloons and Helium or Hydrogen. Essentially, one is able to simply attach a camera to the balloon, and let it rise to the boundaries of space while it clicks away at the beauties below.
However it is not that simple. Housing needs to be designed and manufactured so that the instruments don't freeze. Tracking equipment needs to be used to track and predict the landing of the payload when it returns to Earth. Software needs to be built to work with the tracking systems. Cameras need to be modified to be controlled remotely. These, and many other (relatively) expensive operations need to be completed before liftoff.
Most of the designing and building operations are being done by me, however the purchasing of the equipment (cameras, weather balloons, trackers and manufacturing costs) is the one thing holding me back and keeping me from obtaining that goal. Your contribution, no matter the size, will help immensely to reach T minus 0.
FUNDING
Transparency goes a long way, so I have created a breakdown of the budget allocations so that you know exactly where the money is going:
- Photography equipment:
- GoPro Hero 4 Silver with Battery BacPac: R2300 ($170)
- Canon Powershot SX500IS: R2500 ($180)
- Canon Powershot SX620HS: R1300 ($95)
- 16GB MicroSD card: R80 ($5)
- 32GB MicroSd card: R110 ($8)
- Payload housing and manufacturing:
- Polystyrene and Sondor manufacturing: R2000 ($150)
- Parachute manufacturing: R500 ($35)
- General equipment:
- Sounding balloon (Pawan 1000g) - sponsored by Intermet Africa: R1500 ($110)
- Radiosonde tracking unit - sponsored by Intermet Africa: R2500 ($180)
- Other Expenses:
- Petrol: R1200 ($90)
- Miscellaneous: R500 ($35)
Although cheaper then sending a rocket to space, it is still a stretch for a student budget. I have already found backers for the general equipment and part of the photography, however it is the cost of the remaining photography equipment and the housing manufacturing that is the most daunting.
IMPACT
High altitude photography has been around for a long time in other countries, but is very scarce in South Africa. Since it began, there have only been a handful of launches in the country, only two of which have been done from Cape Town, both of which were by companies, not individuals. Although the weather service sends up balloons every day, none of them are visually recorded from its perspective, so we never get to see what the balloon sees.
Through this project, I am trying to excite people of South Africa about space exploration, and show them that it is possible for anyone. The project is mostly aimed at students and young adults, as it could serve as inspiration for any dreams or aspirations they may have thought unattainable.
The project does not need to elaborate. In fact, it would be possible to send up cheap cameras in homemade polystyrene boxes, instead of compact cameras. However, in an attempt to start a new interest in space exploration, one needs to make people excited about it. In order to achieve this, the photos and videos taken have to be out of this world. Literally.
Your contribution could help in restarting something that excites and terrifies many: exploring the unknown.
RISKS
This kind of project is risky. Essentially, a balloon carrying thousands of Rands worth of equipment is let go and the wind carries it away, with no intervention or control possible. After the balloon bursts, a parachute deploys and is it the complete mercy of the winds. Because of this, the package could land in the sea, on a mountain, somewhere unreachable, etc. Not to mention that if it gets too cold, the cameras could freeze and shutdown before the end of the mission, rendering the entire mission useless.
However these challenges have been foreseen and hopefully overcome. Prediction models have been made and are available to anyone online, which calculate the weight of the balloon, the ascent rate, the predicted wind speed and direction for a given time and day and will be able to predict, with decent accuracy, the vicinity where the payload will land, with all the flight data. However, this is not good enough, so a Radiosonde tracker uses GPS to determine the location and altitude of the payload every second and sends back the co-ordinates via radio waves to a portable ground station that is interpreted by software on a laptop in real time. In addition to this, I have built custom software, which integrates with Google Earth, which will read the data from the ground station, and map a 3D path inside Google Earth, as well as a predictive algorithm that, combined with the online predictive method, provides almost 100% accuracy of where the package will land, giving me enough time to drive to the location and retrieve the payload intact.
The freezing problem has been addressed with two methods. The first is by using polystyrene housing and Sondor as a soft foam inner. This will retain the heat generated by the cameras and should be enough to keep them at operating temperature. To be extra sure, foot warmers will be placed in the box as well, just as a precaution.
Although the risks are high, they have been carefully thought out and through this have been lowered significantly.
CAN'T DONATE? NOT A PROBLEM
I understand that some of you can't, or don't want to contribute, which is understandable. However it would be appreciated immensely if you could share this project with anyone you think may be interested. This will greatly increase the chance of liftoff and interest in edge of space exploration.