Thursday, September 12, 2013

Space balloon!

Okay so I have always been fascinated by flight, and especially space flight. I was more than a bit excited this week when the first ever launch of a stratospheric space research balloon was launched in Timmins. For a whole bunch of scientific reasons, Timmins was chosen a year ago as the site of the balloon launch base by the Canadian Space Agency and the official space agency of France. The base has been built, the science people have moved in and the first launch ever from Timmins was held Thursday night. This balloon, nearly ten storeys high, can hold 100-thousand cubic metres of helium. Cool! The next launch, sometime in the next 72 hours, will have a balloon than can hold 800-cubic metres. Amazing or what... and the plastic is the same thickness (or THINness) of a dry cleaning bag.

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