All First DBA Space Ride?

J

johnrunner

Hey guys and gals, so every month I seem to read an article or see a video online of a group of people that send a camera and certain item (whether it be a lego toy, or teddy bear etc.) into space by tying it to a weather ballon and letting it up climb several miles up in the sky. I'm sure you have all seen pics and vids of what I'm talking about.

So sitting at home bored I began looking into the project. And I might just be full of hot air but I think it would be something that would be perfect for us CA riders since we have the big wide open desert at our feet!

I was thinking we could put a toy figure on one of those little model dirt bikes (KTM 350exc preferably :smirk:)
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And we could fix some gopro's and contour cameras on the package to get some sweet pics and vids. And we could obviously slap some DBA stickers on the package! :thumb:

From what I see, WEATHER and winds play HUGE factors as well as LOCATION. With everyone's knowledge on here, I think we could make this happen! First off, location. We would need a location that has accessible land for miles and miles around. So I'm thinking you BLM and open dez. guru's with tons of seat time in the mid. of nowhere could help in choosing a good point. Several of us have 4wd vehicles and plated bikes, so getting to the landing spot shouldn't be an issue. With the other big factor, Weather, we could hopefully get some helping hands from our one and only Weathergeek! Come on Bruce, now it's your time to shine! lol And then tracking the package is the other main factor. For this, I've seen people put old plain old simple Iphone's with their GPS tracker on (they actually seem to work well) or put other types of fancy GPS locaters on them.


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I was thinking we could make a riding day out of it and have this as a cool event centered around the trip. It would be DBA's first SPACE RIDE RR! :ride: :smirk:

Maybe I'm just thinking over my head but it's something I really want to do. So would anyone be interested?
 
J

johnrunner

jackson409:
Sounds cool, but who is going to donate their Gopro and Iphone:noidea: that is about $600 of toys right there that you may never see again :prof:
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Donate? More like lend since the goal is to get them back :smirk:. My helmet cam is up for use! And I tracking down an old iphone for cheap shouldn't be to hard. Or we could look into another option.
 
jackson409

jackson409

johnrunner:
Donate? More like lend since the goal is to get them back :smirk:. My helmet cam is up for use! And I tracking down an old iphone for cheap shouldn't be to hard. Or we could look into another option.
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I understand the goal is to track them down, but all it takes is a good strong cross wind to blow that thing off course for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Just saying you MAY never see them again. And if I were to walking through the woods one day and I found a toy bike, nevermind the camera and Iphone, I would be like JACKPOT :banana: you aint getting that shit back JACK.:smirk:
 
Travace

Travace

so are you going to buy the balloon that is big enough and strong enough to make it ?

as for the GPS locator you could use a SPOT with tracking on. If this does happen i have a gopro hd2 with a battery backpack i am willing to send up to get the footage

i would absolutly love to do a video edit of this entire day... the set up the riding ...the finding and then the actually space footage.

it could be so epic.
 
James

James

Staff member
I'd say go for it. :thumb: Trav has my vote to put together a sick edit.

I'd say that getting the weather balloon and helium would probably be the hard part. Also wouldn't you need clearance from the FAA as you're going through and above their airspace? I'd hate to be responsible in the off chance a jet engine sucks in a weather balloon. :lol::shocked:

Also what kind of distance are we talking here?
 
Travace

Travace

James:
I'd say go for it. :thumb: Trav has my vote to put together a sick edit.

I'd say that getting the weather balloon and helium would probably be the hard part. Also wouldn't you need clearance from the FAA as you're going through and above their airspace? I'd hate to be responsible in the off chance a jet engine sucks in a weather balloon. :lol::shocked:

Also what kind of distance are we talking here?
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yea there is logistics ...prolly lots of em... and we are in CALI so they prolly want us to pay big $$$$
 
J

johnrunner

So from further reading, I have yet to see an actual permits that are required to be purchased from either the FAA or the FCC. However, they do have guidelines and regulations about the unit itself being sent up into the stratosphere. And multiple kits I've seen are based upon those guidelines and regulations. Here's a good site and company I found about the topic. But I'm going to continue to look this issue just in case. http://www.stratostar.net/faq/#faq1

As far as recovering the package, from what I've learned, summer flights experience less high altitude wind giving overall less horizontal travel distance. But that travel distance still range on average been 1-30 miles. In the winter, high altitudes winds go up to 200mph and create further horizontal travel distances, ranging from 1-75 miles. Both of those distances seem to be relatively ideal for our wide open desert.

Here's a cool vid I saw of a father and son who did it. THey did it in New York in August and retrieved the package only 30 miles from the launch site, and the packaged experienced 150mph winds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6ZMscMp8UM&feature=player_embedded

Trav, and I forgot to mention you in the first post as using your great editing skills and being the movie maker during this caper. :thumb:

The one big downside of this project I see thus far is cost. As nice kits range between $100-$300. It's not an insane amount but it sure isn't chump change. I'm going to keep looking into the kits to see what's the best bang for the buck. What's neat about some of the kits is that they come with the appropriate trackers and sensors for us to be able to upload afterwards and see exactly what the package experienced in flight and at what altitude.

I was thinking a simple lightweight foam package filled with light weight hand warmers and a thin pole sticking out with a camera would suffice and meet the 6 pound weight limit of the package. Here is a pic of a kid who did the experiment for his Junior High class. What shocks me is that he put a uncovered Contour Roam helmet cam on the pole and it held up like a champ. Recorded almost the entire flight but battery died on descent. I've got a Contour Roam camera that we can use for this :thumb:

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Travace

Travace

i would be willing to run my garmin 60csx on it as well. if this really happens we should get multiple gopro's on it if possible.
 
James

James

Staff member
I'd be willing to chip in to make this happen. I'd like to see a killer shot of a dirt bike and DBA sticker against a backdrop of the earth. :rocker:

Trav the Hero 3 can take 1080p video and photos at the same time right?
 
J

johnrunner

For all of us Socal guys, look at this vid of some Santa Clarita guys launching a Coors Light up into space. I'm sure some of the ariel views will look familiar to to you guys.


Alright after looking into more of the FAA requirements. Looks like we need to mount one of these on the ballon. Best place they say to mount it is to put on the opposite side of the support beam that will hold the camera.

http://www.sky-probe.com/Accessories-Radar_Reflector.html

and looks like FCC and FAA requires the package to be able to be tracked with a GPS device NOT a cell phone. So while people use iphones to find them at the end of the trip, law technically requires a gps device on board. Most common method and advised method used is a SPOT gps tracker as they can be tracked through out the entire trip. Those only cost $100 BUT require $150 membership. Trav. would you be willing to "volunteer" :smirk: your spot?
 
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