Many of you may be familiar with the HALO website already and the cool photos taken by their high altitude balloon. Well, my older brother saw that site last year and set about making his own high altitude balloon project. The photo above, and this set on Flickr is only a small sampling of the results.
I admit that before last Friday I had a healthy dose of skepticism about the idea of building the balloon rig and sending up a payload; and every time my bro began lecturing me about Boyle's law it was difficult to pay attention. His excitement and anticipation for the whole project never wavered though, and I think the payoff of these amazing photos (some taken from as high as 90,523 ft) are more than adequate reward.
While these photos are very cool, the real point of the whole venture was to develop project guidelines for school kids to follow and build similar rigs. I don't know for sure if that will happen any time soon - but hopefully it will! In the meantime, you can see a lot more photos and read a few more specifics at the Flickr set.
-ic
