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Subscribe to RSSWatch a recap of Lauren Rojas' high-flying project for a seventh-grade science class.
High-altitude balloon missions are so mainstream that iPhones, "Star Trek" action figures, Lego toys and political bobblehead dolls have all taken their turns rising to the edge of space — but what about Hello Kitty? Now the lovable Japanese plush cat has made its own mark on the final frontier, thanks to 13-year-old Lauren Rojas.
Rojas, a seventh-grader at Cornerstone Christian School in Antioch, Calif., settled on the idea of sending a Hello Kitty doll to the stratosphere for her science project. The doll was provided by her dad, who picked it up during up a business trip to Tokyo. The girl (who was 12 at the time) perched the kitty in a cute silver rocket ship, positioned it amid flight gear from High Altitude Science, festooned the rig with GoPro Hero2 video cameras, filled up the lighter-than-air balloon — and then let 'er rip.
The aim of Rojas' experiment was to gauge air pressure and temperature as the balloon-borne experiment package rose — and she picked up some interesting effects: The peak winds exceeded 60 mph at the 10,000-foot level. The temperature fell from 43 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) as low as 22 degrees below zero F (-30 degrees C) when the balloon popped at an altitude of 93,625 feet (28,537 meters).
That's less than a third of the way to the internationally accepted boundary of outer space, which is at an altitude of 62 miles or 100 kilometers. But as this YouTube video about the flight demonstrates, it's high enough to get a great view of Earth below the black sky of space. The package fell back to Earth and landed 47 miles (75 kilometers) from the launch site, 50 feet up in the branches of a tree. Which is an apt place for a wayward kitty to end up.
For more about the feat, check out this report from the New York Daily News.
Still more high-altitude adventures:
- A rise and fall that's out of this world
- How a space train was brought to life
- MIT acceptance letter hits the heights
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Published at 3:58 p.m. ET Feb. 6.
Leave a Comment:
To think that another Planet's first view of us will be the Hello Kitty Doll.....Lovely.
Eh, could be worse----what about the political figure bobble-heads?
Better than Twilight!
*laughs* You almost owed me a new keyboard there Alan. :-)
Close one! ;-)
What a wonderful science project! It is especially nice that this was done by a young girl. I hope this not only inspires her but also other young girls to enjoy more science. Who knows what they will be capable of in the future.
Way to go Lauren!! Oh and how'd you get it out of that tall tree?
I saw at the end of the video that Woodpecker Arborist got a thank you, so I'm guessing that it did, and not Superman or the fire department!
Great story and an even better video! I think that should definitely get her an A and hopefully a lifetime supply of Hello Kitty litter for the wayward cat...
Well, if some bully in the future says "She's no rocket scientist" she can certainly prove them wrong!
Well, I think she would disagree with you, since no rockets were used.
It certainly appeared to me that Kitty was sitting in a rocket!
Well, I guess we can assume that you are no rocket scientist either then Brenda. :)
It seems like everyone is doing their own "weather balloon" experiment these days. But, you know something? It never gets old. Good for you, Lauren. That was fun.
Islamic terrorists called to say thanks. They just came up with a brand new idea for a bomb-delivery vehicle. It'll be "Hello Infidel" immediately before lights out.
You're right, a Hello Kitty balloon might have more range and accuracy than those missiles they keep trying to fire.
lasvegastim,
I'd like to make two points:
1) Most of the weather balloon shots go straight up and come pretty much straight down, within a mile of launch spot. So launching a bomb via one would pretty much take out a few of the non-rocket scientists, or some of their relatives.
2) Balloon launches were done by the Japanese during WWII. They went over the Pacific and landed on the West Coast, but some make it as far as Michigan and Iowa. There is a memorial to the only people killed by one, over in Bly, Oregon, and they were probably trying to take it to authorities when it went off.
Talk about another bright healthy youngster pushing the envelope in scientific frontiers, you go Lauren! And to see such charming images of Hello Kitty at altitude was delightful. Great job!
Nice job Lauren.... when I was your age, we had started the effort to get to the moon.... what a wonderful trip that was.... congrats on this effort... lots of excitement, lots of praise... but what will you do with it all? That is the question..... keep our antenna up... keep learning... keep exploring.... keep questioning.... and whatever you do... keep being you.... congrats!
Now who's gonna climb that 50 foot three to get the hello kitty back?
I'd say that Woodpecker Arborist did, as it got a thank you at the end of the video.
Correct, they needed the assistance of the arborist to retrieve the package.
This really ups the bar for when my kids need to do science projects. Hopefully by then i can send them to space!
It's liter and it's inviromentally unfriendly. A bald eagle may try to eat it and die.
"It's liter...."
I don't think liquid measurements apply in this situation.....
Bald eagles eat meat, or in other words, dead and alive carbon-based life-forms.
I think an eagle would be a little more savvy than that, Zoomonkie.
And the kitty was "rescued" after landing, so I don't think it was doing any environmental harm.
You can't get that much excitement, exercise, and learning inside playing XBox.
It doesn't get better than Hello Kitty with a pink ribbon on the space ship! You go girl!
Finally, a pleasant and inspiring story. Speaking as a person who has been in Aerospace Engineering since
1953, I am certain that that girl will go on to bigger things in Aerospace.
Neat story. I'm wondering how they tracked it down once it landed. Were they able to ping a cellphone on board...or what?
Lauren and her dad used flight gear from High Altitude Science, which offers a SPOT II Satellite Tracker to provide location data. It's supposed to be better than a cell phone because of improved coverage. If you watch the video, you can hear a pinging sound - I assume that's meant to guide searchers to the package once they're in the vicinity. You can "spot" the SPOT II tracker in the video if you stop it at the 12-second mark.
http://shop.highaltitudescience.com/SPOT-II-Satellite-Tracker-40002.htm
Thank you, Alan. It's nice to have the extra feedback and information!
What would happen if there was something to vent the gas at high altitude so the balloon would not explode?
good question, I was thinking the same thing
Nice story. I'm really glad to see more girls into science. That's our future!
That is a nice science experiment for a child from a wealthy family. I would like to know the cost of her experiment from the Go-Pro to the tracker along with the atmospheric measuring equipment.
I'm not knocking her, the family can spend their money however they want. I'm just pointing out that most kids would not have the resources to do this.
Doubt this really happened. The video of the
Kitty ship couldn't have been shot the way
it is on this film unless somebody was right
along side it filming it.
That was one small step for Lauren and one giant leap for Kitty.
This was cool, especially because a dad already did it with his son's train last year!
Sorry but the video looks faked. The view of Earth is closer to an orbiting space station view than from a balloon at 70K feet. Last year a teenage girl in the Southeast launched a balloon that went 100K feet up with very accurate video. Looked nothing like this one. (But I'd still give her an A.)
The view is warped by the lens, you notice at one time that the curve of the earth is the opposite of what it should be, again due to the lens or some other kind of protection.
Lens has a 170 degree field of view, which tends to exaggerate the curvature of the earth and anything else for that matter.
Sorry, no conspiracy here.
SpeedOfLight, we need to be alert. Hello Kitty is originally from Japan, you know. Got to keep an eye on them "fur"ininers, ya know, don't let down yer guard, ya never know what they may be up to.....could be a conspiracy tied up w/ a cute 'lil bow.....
(What do you mean, "Japan's economy's in the toilet, & they have more pressing matters to tend to than sending stuffed toys into space"?)
To boldly go where no other Hello Kitty has gone before. Super cool!