Six year old boy floats off in a balloon

Platapus · 10-16-09, 03:42 PM

A few things stynk about this.

Looking at the size of the balloon and the fact that it was filled with Helium, I would estimate that its effective payload would be about 10 pounds. The Balloon appeared only have enough gas to fill 1/2 of the envelope as the rest of the space would be for the expansion at altitude.

Watching the balloon in flight, it did not seem to have much ballast (weight) in the base.

In looking at the recovery imagery, there is no opening for the kid to get in to the base. That base looks like a foundation for mounting the instrument package to the bottom of the base.

Now that we have seen the lift off imagery, there is no instrumentation box attached to the foundation.

Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.

10-16-09, 03:42 PM	#30
Platapus Fleet Admiral Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 19,381 Downloads: 63 Uploads: 0	A few things stynk about this. Looking at the size of the balloon and the fact that it was filled with Helium, I would estimate that its effective payload would be about 10 pounds. The Balloon appeared only have enough gas to fill 1/2 of the envelope as the rest of the space would be for the expansion at altitude. Watching the balloon in flight, it did not seem to have much ballast (weight) in the base. In looking at the recovery imagery, there is no opening for the kid to get in to the base. That base looks like a foundation for mounting the instrument package to the bottom of the base. Now that we have seen the lift off imagery, there is no instrumentation box attached to the foundation. Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. __________________ abusus non tollit usum - A right should NOT be withheld from people on the basis that some tend to abuse that right.