Friday, February 12, 2010

I did not know that...

Did you ever stop and wonder about the various triviata involved in launching a weather balloon? Me, neither.

Apparently, though, there is quite a bit more to it than "1) Put helium in balloon. 2) Let go of balloon."

Neat.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, actually, yes I do.

We had to make one in 10th grade Science class.

I was in the garage with three hair dryers checking the thing for leaks when I realized that my life wasn't like the cool kids on television.

I got an A but my balloon had a less than spectular in flight; it was recovered near Gas City. Oh, well, the first air mail delivery had problems too.

Shootin' Buddy

Divemedic said...

We found one in the middle of the street last year. At first I didn't know what it was.

The parachute was tangled around the balloon, and never fully opened. Geeks that we are, we took it apart. It had a GPS unit, transmitter, and what we assumed were numerous pressure/temperature/humidity instruments attached to a circuit card, all powered by a couple of AA sized batteries.

It was cool to play with.

drjim said...

One of my duties at the last job I had involved maintaining the weather system we had, and launching the balloons with the radiosondes on them.
It was a gas, no pun intended.

Moriarty said...

Years ago, I found the remains of a balloon on a hillside in a remote area. Never found the radiosonde, though.

I wondered how those things worked. Thanks for reminding me to look it up.