California Eclipses the Sky; The Space Race Begins Now!
My fellow desert creatures, for a few gripping minutes, a new moon rose over the skies of the People's Republic of California to do what all things Californian do and look down on everything else. A near-space weather balloon devised at the clandestine* Noisebridge hackerspace reached the edge of space, bringing back pics because it did happen.
This may seem like a playful act of sportsmanship, launched in preparation for Workshop 88's Annual Space Blimp Contest and for teh lulz, but be warned! This show of one-up-ness is but the first of a new arsenal of Californian space power, no doubt a scheme from the office of Premier Schwarzenegger himself to accelerate the neo-colonization of our beloved Grand Canyon State. Will the next spacecraft stay confined to Californian skies? Or will it ascend to the Final Frontier only to descend south and east, bringing with it unknown terrors? Will our children, pets, or stray javelinas and jackrabbits who tear up our prickly gardens be safe from this invasion from above? I dare not ask that question--but I will dare; I will dare our own hackerspace, newborn babe it may be, to pull together its resources and Sonoran ingenuity to build its own craft to add a copper star to their western skyline.
We must unite, for all our shared culture is at stake; The polygamy of Mojave county, ghosts of Jerome, power crystals of Sedona, trailer parks of East Mesa, valium-vodka cocktails of Scottsdale, hot-dogs-with-bacon-around-them of Tucson, and yes, the light roasted coffee of Tempe, all face the specter of San Francisco's dominion. Ready your will, your skills, and visit our Nearspace Balloon wiki page to see how you can contribute in our effort to boldly go where no Arizona hackerspace has gone before!
* Well, it's really hard to find just walking down Mission street because of all the fruit stands.
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February 18th, 2010 - 23:44
I must say the satire is amazing, Mr. Anonymous-Heatsync-Fellow-Who-Asked-Me-To-Comment. May actually motivate me to join your merry band of hackers, too.
February 19th, 2010 - 02:29
Die rebel scum
February 19th, 2010 - 15:11
Pfft. Californians have been colonizing Phoenix for at least fifteen years. Arnie isn’t behind it.
Also, I love the way we keep getting hit by Make:blog. Exciting!
February 19th, 2010 - 19:43
I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Bay Area standing, to ride out the storm of FAA regulation, and to outlive the menace of fell cloud-strewn weather, if necessary for years, if necessary alone.
At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of Noisebridge-every man, woman, and other gender identified of them. That is the will of the Board and the members.
Spacebridge, the Bacchus Project, the Space Balloon Project, and countless others, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native skies, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength.
Even though large tracts of latex sheathing and many old and famous polymer synthetic envelopes have fallen or may fall into the grip of other jurisdictions and all the odious apparatus of shotgun-armed rednecks and highway patrol, we shall not flag or fail.
We shall go on to the end, we shall launch in the Central Valley,
we shall chase on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our latent thermal energy, whatever the cost may be,
we shall soar in the atmosphere,
we shall crash on the landing grounds,
we shall roll in the fields and in the airways;
we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Hackerspace or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Comrades beyond the seas, armed and guarded by our Research, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
February 19th, 2010 - 19:45
(also, want to try to synchronize launches and do a high-altitude rendezvous sometime? That’d be excellent!)
February 19th, 2010 - 23:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5cEpoHLFOk
February 20th, 2010 - 02:04
Hrm. Thats not the clip I wanted. If anyones ever seen this MST3K there is a terrifying Host segment where Crow refuels … in Tom.
February 20th, 2010 - 09:21
A high altitude rendezvous sounds exciting, although I’m not sure how close the launches would have to be or how that would even work. Lift-off at Lake Havasu perhaps?
February 21st, 2010 - 16:54
Wow, I was JUST thinking about a high altitude rendezvous the other night and trying to think of how it could be done. We’d probably have to be no further then around 700 miles away. I think the radio horizon at these altitudes is between 300 and 400 miles, depending on how high you get.
We would probably have to have a second radio in each payload for the rendezvous communication. Perhaps one balloon could continuously transmit its callsign on a specific frequency while the other balloon just records the audio. When the second payload is recovered, we could listen to see if the callsign was picked up.
Even more complicated, but cooler, we could try turning our balloons into repeaters. This could potentially allow us to communicate with each other with voice directly over the radio. These are neat ideas but I’m not sure if they would be good to try during the competition, because they would require additional weight.
February 27th, 2010 - 20:56
been heckling friends over at noise bridge on how our balloon is gonna make their balloon it’s bitch