http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100429/sc_space/hugenasascienceballooncrashesinaustralianoutback

Video at:
http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/nasa-space-balloon-launch-a-flop-19379986



A huge NASA balloon loaded with a telescope painstakingly built to scan the sky at wavelengths invisible to the human eye crashed in the Australian outback Thursday, destroying the astronomy experiment and just missing nearby onlookers, according to Australian media reports.

"Today was a terrible day for a lot of people," wrote Eric Bellm, a graduate astronomy student at the UC Berkeley, in a blog chronicling the science mission. "For the NCT team, we've poured our hearts into this instrument for years. It was an almost unfathomable shock to find ourselves cleaning up the wreckage of our gondola rather than watching it lift off towards space."

Will we never master balloon technology?

NASA? Australia? There's only one person here with interests in both.

4LULZ Wrote:
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> NASA? Australia? There's only one person here
> with interests in both.


Isn't Australia where they picked up the first transmission of the fake moon landing? You know, the one with the Coke can in the background?

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eesh Wrote:
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>
>
> A huge NASA balloon loaded with a telescope
> painstakingly built to scan the sky at wavelengths
> invisible to the human eye crashed in the
> Australian outback Thursday, destroying the
> astronomy experiment and just missing nearby
> onlookers, according to Australian media reports.
>
> "Today was a terrible day for a lot of people,"
> wrote Eric Bellm, a graduate astronomy student at
> the UC Berkeley, in a blog chronicling the science
> mission. "For the NCT team, we've poured our
> hearts into this instrument for years. It was an
> almost unfathomable shock to find ourselves
> cleaning up the wreckage of our gondola rather
> than watching it lift off towards space."


There's NO WAY a private company can do what NASA does! Crashing balloons? Losing probes over Mars? Having a shuttle disintegrate during re-entry? How can we possibly trust private industry to do that?

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http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2010 03:38PM by WashingTone-Locian.

You forgot killing elementary school teachers on your list of NASA accomplishments.

Still not as epic as the Capitals choke job.

I'm no balloon scientist, but it doesn't sound like it be too hard to get that thing off the ground.

TheMeeper Wrote:
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> I'm no balloon scientist, but it doesn't sound
> like it be too hard to get that thing off the
> ground.


You're talking about the same agency that crashed a satellite because they couldn't covert metric to US units.

Now let's be fair. They could have, they just didn't.

Johnny Walker Wrote:
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> Now let's be fair. They could have, they just
> didn't.

Don't you mean, "could of?"

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13 4826 0948 82695 25847. Yes.

Where was Falcon "Balloon Boy" Heene when all this was going on? I WANT ANSWERS!

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That's not a ladybug, that's a cannapiller.

Not much you can do when a strong gust of wind hits unexpectedly. It sounds like the local launch center was responsible - the wind report was evidently inaccurate.

Nasa space balloon crashes into car during takeoff
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7649844/Nasa-space-balloon-crashes-into-car-during-takeoff.html

Quote

...
The large balloon, which was carrying expensive and sensitive scientific equipment, was buffeted by a strong gust of wind and ripped from its mooring as it was being filled with air in preparation for launch.

The wind carried the balloon for about 500 metres, when it hit a fence and an onlooker's car before collapsing.

...

Prof Sood said that the winds were stronger than expected and had picked up while the balloon was being filled with air.

"The wind was too strong and it pushed it away and into the spectator's car."

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

all that for TANG and Velcro...what a fucking waste

Wow, 50 years ago we were crashing V2's on the launch pad, within a few years of that we were finally achieving Lunar travel, and now we're crashing weather balloons. It's back to Roswell all over again.

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"And if any women or children get their legs torn off, or faces caved in, well, it's tough shit for them." -2LT. Bert Stiles, 505th, 339th (On Berlin Bombardier Mission, 1944).