Just 8 days ago, this Youtube video went up:
Did you watch it? Watch it. This is what a suborbital space program looks like. if it's giving you ideas, it's because it should.
According to the video's boiler plate, a group of A Level students launched a "Ultra High Altitude Balloon" (UHAB). Solar powered, it gathered data form the edge of space environment, before returning safely. It got to 131,800 ft (40km).
Technology!
The craft - and it's instruments - needed to survive the extreme cold and near-vacuum of the upper atmosphere. They even used a two-stage parachute system. You'll notice separations happening - just like with rocket-powered spacecraft.
They also transmitted the school song over radio: this was a telemetry exercise. Being able to send and receive information (and gather data) makes the difference between a KFC party balloon, and a research probe.
If anyone has contact with this team, please email us and let us know.
We'd like to feature their achievement at our Science, Technology, and Exploration booth.
Royal College (clearly) loves Space
Royal College has been pro Space, for some time now. Astronomer Ray Jayawardhana went there.
Dean of Science at York University in Canada, "Ray Jay" is also a science popularizer, and author of Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life beyond Our Solar System (which is brilliant, by the way). If you're interested in exoplanets, and want a book that actually treats you like a human being, give this a read. It's not every day you find a science writer, who actually writes well.
Before he left Sri Lanka, Dr. Jayawardhana was also a active member of the Young Astronomer's Association.
Another space graduate is Doctor Kavan Ratnatunga. Doctor Ratnatunga worked at NASA Goddard, and the Space Telescope Science Institute, where he worked on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Doctor Kavan will be coming to Lanka Comic Con, where he will talk about good (and bad) science, in good (and bad) scifi movies.
If you like Michael Bay, Doctor Kavan will make you cry.
Disclaimer: I did not go to Royal College (though taxis keep going there, when I ask them to come to Royal Institute).