{"id":19110,"date":"2017-01-07T23:22:30","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T15:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/happy-75th-birthday-stephen-hawking-heres-a-stratospheric-balloon-tribute\/"},"modified":"2017-01-07T23:22:30","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T15:22:30","slug":"happy-75th-birthday-stephen-hawking-heres-a-stratospheric-balloon-tribute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/happy-75th-birthday-stephen-hawking-heres-a-stratospheric-balloon-tribute\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy 75th birthday, Stephen Hawking! Here\u2019s a stratospheric balloon tribute"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_301390\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-301390\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-301390\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/170107-hawking-balloon-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"High-altitude balloon tribute to Stephen Hawking\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/170107-hawking-balloon-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/170107-hawking-balloon-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/170107-hawking-balloon-1240x698.jpg 1240w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/170107-hawking-balloon.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-301390\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Party balloons and a spacey view: Not a bad way to mark Stephen Hawking\u2019s birthday. (NEAR via YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Famed British physicist Stephen Hawking has long wanted to go into space, so what better way to celebrate his 75th birthday than sending him a greeting from near-space?<\/p>\n<p>The greeting comes courtesy of a stratospheric balloon experiment, executed at the Idaho-Oregon border by an Boise-based amateur science group called Near Space Education and Research, or NEAR.<\/p>\n<p>The balloon-borne platform was festooned with a \u201cHappy Birthday, Stephen Hawking,\u201d plus a couple of party balloons for the occasion. (The heavy lifting was done by a much bigger&nbsp;balloon that\u2019s out of the frame in NEAR\u2019s video view.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Stephen Hawking 75th Birthday Tribute\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ezmrIuWLuJs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The platform made it to 92,051 feet before the big balloon popped and the platform fell back to Earth for recovery. That altitude is nowhere near the internationally accepted boundary of outer space, which is 100 kilometers (328,084 feet). But it\u2019s high enough to provide a dandy view of the curving Earth below and the black sky above.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how NEAR\u2019s L. Paul Verhage explained the chain of events in an email to GeekWire:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cAt the altitude our balloon bursts, the air pressure is 98 percent vacuum. Also, the distance to the horizon is 372 miles. The launch took place on the border of Idaho and Oregon, so the video is showing parts of Nevada, California, Washington and Utah along with most of Idaho and Oregon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring the video, you\u2019ll see that the party balloons expand because of the reduced air pressure at altitude. As chemistry and physics students will recall, this is a result of Boyle\u2019s Law (1660).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRobert Boyle\u2019s work influenced Isaac Newton, and it turns out Stephen Hawking and Isaac Newton held the same chair at Trinity College (the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics).\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In a follow-up email, Verhage said November\u2019s balloon flight cost just $150 in materials (and also made clear that the balloon was filled with hydrogen, not helium):<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThe cost was $75 for hydrogen, and another $75 for a 1,500-gram weather balloon.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cThe balloon is tracked using amateur radio, using a tracking system called automatic packet reporting system (APRS). The balloon flew about 50 miles and landed south of Boise. It\u2019s a desert out there, so recovery was pretty easy. In some flights, we\u2019re close enough to see the parachute land.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOn this flight, I also sent an experiment to test imaging in near infrared and thermal infrared. You can see the images on&nbsp;my website.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Stephen Hawking turns 75 on Sunday, which is quite a feat for someone who was expected to die young due to his struggle with neurodegenerative disease. I have a feeling he\u2019d be tickled by the tribute&nbsp;\u2013 just as I\u2019m tickled by the roundabout reference to Boyle\u2019s Law.<\/p>\n<p><em>P.S.: The Daily Mail reports that Hawking saw \u201cRogue One\u201d&nbsp;with friends during an early birthday outing this week, but you could argue that the biggest celebration will come in July, when an international conference on gravity and black holes will bring big-name physicists to Cambridge for a belated-birthday get-together in Hawking\u2019s honor.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Party balloons and a spacey view: Not a bad way to mark Stephen Hawking\u2019s birthday. (NEAR via YouTube) Famed British physicist Stephen Hawking has long wanted to go into space, so what better way to celebrate his 75th birthday than sending him a greeting from near-space? The greeting comes courtesy of a stratospheric balloon experiment, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4671,21,3755,4805],"class_list":["post-19110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-balloon","tag-space","tag-stephen-hawking","tag-stratosphere"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}