CGW in the Global Space Balloon Challenge

[Zach Zeman]

For some time, members have talked about launching a CGW high-altitude balloon, but we never get around to it. In order to light a fire under our collective butt, I have entered us as a team in the Global Space Balloon Challenge.

There are surprisingly few regulations for us to follow for the challenge. Most importantly, we have to launch our balloon (or balloons) between April 10th and 27th, 2015. That gives us right around two months to prepare. The design and build process will involve work in many different fields, including:

Mechanical Design of the capsule to survive the harsh environment of near-space and of a return mechanism to keep everything together during ground/capsule interaction.

Electronics for the tracking system, photography, and any scientific experiments we want to send to the edge of the atmosphere.

Lighter-Than-Air Aeronautics that will let us use helium or hydrogen to send our balloon into the sky.

Weather Analysis and Prediction to make sure that we launch at a safe time and have some idea where our capsule is going to end up.

If that sounds like fun to you, sign up on the CGW DragonTwo team page. We will have two introductory/strategy meetings, one on Sunday, February 8th at 2:00pm and the other on Tuesday, February 10th at 7:00pm. Both of these will be at the hackerspace. Afterwards, the GSBC team will have weekly build meetings on Tuesdays at 7:00pm, with weekend build meetings if appropriate.

Thanks.

-Zach

[Chad LaFarge]

I’m not likely going to be able to participate, but I might just have a spare RasPi B around here somewhere... would that be helpful? or maybe on old Arduino gathering dust... need one?

 

Chad

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[Zach Zeman]

I don't know what the electronics setup is going to look like yet, but they definitely won't hurt. And of course, anything that isn't used or destroyed will be returned.

-Zach

[Brad Collette]

Crazy idea:

http://xkcd.com/941/

What if you launch two balloons with a device to synchronize the direction angle of the cameras.  Make stereoscopic images of the planet from high altitude with HUGE separation.

Brad Collette
573-427-7132

[Chad LaFarge]

Brad,

 

I’m sure there’s not a battery on the planet that would be light and energy-dense enough to keep it going, but the “Ricoh Theta M15 360 Degree Spherical Panorama Camera” (https://theta360.com/en/about/theta/) could get images that could later be processed to be used with “Google Cardboard” https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/ to make some wicked stuff happen.

 

Maybe.

 

But not really, ‘cause battery/weight.

 

Chad

[Dan Goldstein]

Like this idea... A gimble mounted camera on each balloon.  If you start them looking in the right directions a bit downward they theoretically would stay pointed in the right directions as they ascend... Maybe for next year...

[Zach Zeman]

Reminder:

Introductory/strategy meeting tomorrow, February 10th, at 7pm in the hackerspace. If you've ever been interested in high-altitude ballooning, or if you just want to learn what it is, now is the time.

-Zach

[Zach Zeman]

And we're off. The GSBC team will be meeting for build nights on Tuesdays at 7pm. If you are interested in learning or participating but couldn't make either of the introductory meetings, please let me know so I can include you in communications.

Thanks.

-Zach

[Jim A. Fieser]

I'm interested enough to read the mail, hen - pecked enough to hardly get there.

Jim

[Dan Goldstein]

Hey Zack,

  Include me in the e-mails. Like I said no new projects till after T/F (second week of March) but I'll help after that...

Dan

"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory   out there - good for you.
 
But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of the police forces and the fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory...
 
Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and you pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
- Elizabeth Warren (Sept. 2011)

[Patrick Smith]

Has anyone see this? Maybe some inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpBnurznFio

~Patrick

[Jim A. Fieser]

One facet of the challenge that was considered was creating our own hydrogen to fill the balloon with.  It was quickly dismissed because we lacked the pumping hardware to pressurize and store the hydrogen prior to use.  

Recently it occurred to me that we do in fact have several pneumatic actuators and the tiny electric control valves for them.  One actuator, driven by compressed air could drive another actuator that draws hydrogen from a low pressure collection vessel.  At the end of the stoke, both valves would switch:  

the compressed air valve flips the pressure to it's other side and exhausts the filled side to the room

the hydrogen valve connects the filled side of the actuator to a pressure tank and connects the empty side to the low pressure collection vessel for refilling.  

We use separate actuators for hydrogen and air because we expect there to be some hydrogen that slips past the piston seal.  That loss is minimized because a) it doesn't introduce air into our hydrogen, b) we're going to re-capture that hydrogen in the next cycle and c) the difference in pressure from one side to the other is kept small by having multiple stages.  

As long as the cost of each stage is kept small, we can have several stages to ramp up the pressure.  Since we have some actuators and valves already, each stage requires 1 pressure sensor and 1 small tank (and access to the pressure information and pressure tank from the previous stage).  Since we are dedicating actuators to each stage, we only need small tanks except for the big one at the end.  I have a 100 lb (24 gallon) propane tank for the final stage I'd donate to the cause.  

A controller would need to log the pressures from every stage so we could monitor which stage was leaking.  Odor-less & colorless as hydrogen is, it demands that we not seek leaks with a lighter:  use soap instead!

Can we fill a balloon with our own hydrogen.  Let's not plan on filling it up.  But we could start with some of our own hydrogen and finish filling with high-pressure helium:  there should be no downside to mixing and matching.  

It's a thought,

Jim

 

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Jim