Man Trying To Fly Across the Atlantic On Helium Balloons 92
coondoggie writes "f you've ever wondered if you could fly just by holding onto a bunch of helium balloons over your head, well then you might understand where Accenture IT Technical Projects Manager Jonathan Trappe is coming from. Trappe today set out today from Caribou, Maine to cross 2,500 miles of Atlantic Ocean using 370 helium balloons slung under a small gondola. According to a DailyMail.com story, Trappe is relying on state-of-the-art weather data from the meteorologist who advised Felix Baumgartner on his record-breaking skydive from the stratosphere last year. The latest weather reports before the launch suggested winds would take Trappe to western Europe, though the exact destination would be hard to predict."
Update: 09/13 14:08 GMT by S : The attempt is already over and unsuccessful. Trappe landed safely in Newfoundland, saying he was having trouble controlling the balloons.
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Not that nuts he's aborted http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24076168 [bbc.co.uk]
Perhaps he will try again. If not we'll have to turn to some other adventurer for our vicarious thrill-seeking.
On helium balloons? (Score:5, Funny)
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...and you would talk *really* oddly
Under a small gondola? (Score:1)
Think the fault of TFA, but surely it's a small gondola slung under 370 helium balloons, not 370 helium balloons under a small gondola?
Could prove fatal to the success of the attempt otherwise...
Slung UNDER? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, the balloons are slung UNDER the gondola? Is this story from another multiverse where the rules ain't the same.
In any case, with 370 dangling sacks that's a really well slung dude.
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I think someone got the ballasts hanging underneath confused with the BIG FUCK OFF BUNCH OF BRIGHTLY COLOURED BALLOONS FLOATING ABOVE.
Apparently some people are actually that retarded.
You can follow his trip on Facebook (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't though, because like any responsible human being, I block Facebook at the DNS level. FFS people, if you make Facebook the new web, I give up all faith I had left in humanity.
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Me blocking Facebook isn't a protest. It is to stop every other website sending pings to them with their stupid "Like" Buttons.
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Hmm, I was expecting to see "sheeple" in there somewhere. Disappointed for sure...
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I can't though, because like any responsible human being, I block Facebook at the DNS level. FFS people, if you make Facebook the new web, I give up all faith I had left in humanity.
Exactly. Facebook is like an evil, privately-controlled, sub-internet.
He's doing it wrong (Score:1)
This guy obviously doesn't know how these things work. He's supposed to attach the balloons to a house, and go to South America...
Just sayin'
Re: He's doing it wrong (Score:2)
This. It's been done, and with much more style too.
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He already did that. [gizmodo.com]
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waste of helium. (Score:2, Insightful)
really.
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Balloons don't waste helium, that's largely a misunderstanding. Balloon helium is recycled and impure and not good for anything but filling balloons.
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Balloons don't waste helium, that's largely a misunderstanding. Balloon helium is recycled and impure and not good for anything but filling balloons.
Not economically feasible to use for anything but filling balloons, given current prices? Sure. But if you're denying we could (and, given high enough helium prices, would) purify and liquefy the recycled helium, then you just don't know what you're talking about.
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that would be foolish, more economical with that kind of equipment to reclaim it from liquified atmosphere. which is why there will never be a "helium shortage" on planet earth for hundreds of millions of years.
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where can you take your old balloons to recycle the Helium ?
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you might be interested to know that the "helium shortage" nonsense you've been reading is a bunch of bullshit. vast amounts still remain mixed with natural gas underground, and even if wastefully vented just stays in the atmosphere where it can be recovered by other means. there is no shortage of helium and its impossible to dispose of.
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...even if wastefully vented just stays in the atmosphere where it can be recovered by other means.
Nope [wikipedia.org]. Helium and hydrogen get fast enough at altitude to achieve escape velocity. Due to atmospheric escape, the concentration of helium in the atmosphere is relatively constant at about 5 ppm. That is a ridiculously low concentration. It is absolutely not economic to extract helium from the atmosphere. Liquid helium is less expensive than scotch, and you wouldn't try to extract a cask after it was poured into a swimming pool.
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sure it escapes but there is not a net loss, there is gain. 50 grams of helium leave while 67 grams are added to the atmosphere every second ,the concentration is slowly going up. but even with no replenishment the 3.7 billion tons of helium in the atmosphere would take a very long time to drop to 10% of its current value, tens of millions of years (rate would drop as concentration lowers)
As far as extraction, just pointing out the helium is not going away so as last resort could be reclaimed though huge
There's an award for that (Score:4, Informative)
I hope he does better than this guy [darwinawards.com].
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Spoiler alert (Score:1)
Difference? (Score:2)
So there is really such a big difference between one big balloon and lots of small balloons containing the same volume of helium?
Because otherwise I'd say this has been done before.
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I can't find any articles on Google about previous helium attempts, because all of the results are about this guy. Who's done it with helium before?
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now that's a funny question, only because the answer is long distance trips with helium were done over half a century ago and it was boring and common long before most slashdotters were born. the craft usually had mulitple chambers so not a single "balloon". So there is indeed nothing new here,
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perhaps with hydrogen...
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...or Nitrous Oxide..
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So there is really such a big difference between one big balloon and lots of small balloons containing the same volume of helium?
The former takes just one BB gun pellet to bring down.
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not very quickly, the pressure is a couple percent over atmospheric. it gets even more interesting with airships with their multiple chambers, an airship 600 tested by UK DERA took *several hundred* rounds of automatic gunfire and still floated for a couple hours.
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Thats really neat =) I never would have thought to ask that question, but the answer is pretty cool and informative. Would love to see more airships. I always wanted one for personal transportation. I figure it would be a pretty feasible and safe mass transit system, fuck trains.
alas.... the human race... omg
Man Trying to Get Arrested (Score:2)
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It's a licensed aircraft.
N878UP
See, it is certified airworthy;
http://www.clusterballoon.com/UP/assets/UP_N878UP_AirworthinessCertificate.html
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/N878UP.html
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As such, you can track it at http://www.flightradar24.com/ [flightradar24.com] - just search for it.
Yeah, nice move Accenture... (Score:4, Insightful)
So this guys is wasting one of humankind's most precious resource [dailymail.co.uk] on a useless stunt to promote his company. That's real slick, that.
Note to self: never do business with Accenture.
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Re:Yeah, nice move Accenture... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you believe a word the Daily Mail says, you're a fool.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2012/dec/11/should-we-ban-helium-balloons [theguardian.com]
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Well, if car analogies don't work and we have to resort to oceanic analogies, you could compare MRI scanners to the Indian Ocean, industrial uses to the Pacific, and sports/entertainment usage to Chesapeake Bay...
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I'm more worried about oil to be honest. We get a lot of helium from natural gas production (typically about 1% of production is helium), which the US has been seeing a lot of these days.
Comparing one person flying across an ocean using party balloons to the 10s of millions of people driving to work every day is a non-starter. Oil is more precious to our society than helium, yet most of us waste it without a second thought (I drive to maximize MPG, but I don't cut down on driving).
MRI machines represent t
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So this guys is wasting one of humankind's most precious resource [dailymail.co.uk] on a useless stunt to promote his company. That's real slick, that.
Note to self: never do business with Accenture.
There's plenty more helium in our very own solar system. Just ask that big yellow thingy in the sky for some.
I work in consulting... (Score:1)
From linked article:
"And, on the Accenture website, Trappe details strapping into his office chair, tying up 55 helium balloons and fling over the North Carolina countryside - at about 15,000 feet."
So now you know why they are so expensive and what exactly they do while "working" for you.
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Obligatory xkcd (Score:3)
mod parent up! (Score:2)
I thought of that panel, too.
Scary ride (Score:1)
Gone down! (Score:2)
His website has, anyway. http://clusterballoon.com/ is giving me 503 errors.
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Just keep going all the way around.
So will this deliver him over the Atlantic? (Score:2)
Makes sense now, triple the number of balloons and add another two years and he'll get half way there before crashing in an expensive failure.
RIP Larry Walters (Score:2)
prime example of the American spirit (Score:2)
And had to deal with the hardship that all such visionaries endure, one way or another.
This guy, and that double-Darwin award winning priest are lame-ass plagiarists.
Predictions (Score:2)
Track him at flightradar24.com (Score:3)
Since it's a registered aircraft with a transponder, you can track it HERE [flightradar24.com] - just search for N878UP.
Well, that didn't work out well... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Man-using-cluster-balloons-lands-in-Newfoundland-4811559.php [chron.com]
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Gotta give him credit for a sense of humor. From the article,
By Thursday evening, he was well on his way, headed toward Newfoundland. But a couple of hours later, he posted that he'd landed. "This doesn't look like France," he posted on Facebook.
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How about the fact that Mythbusters is staffed by glory-seeking idiots with poor experimental methodology and an absurd sense of self-importance?
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eh? people have levitated themselves with helium filled weather balloons, one man attached them to a lawn chair, look it up
Danny Deckchair (Score:1)
Sounds like Danny Deckchair! http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337960/ [imdb.com]
Obligatory IT Crowd (Score:2)
Jen: Freddy, that bloke that did the charity thing where he tied the balloons to the chair.
Roy: Oh yeah...
Jen: Such a lovely idea. Floating from London to Glasgow to promote optimism...
Jen: Anyway, there's a collection for his wife and kids...
Is he the same guy who asked this question? (Score:1)