Andy Elson - adventure engineering |
|
Home | News | Adventure Projects | Engineering | Life Support Systems | Facilities | Team | Contact |
|
To the Edge of SpaceIn an attempt to set a new, absolute altitude record of 132,000 feet. Andy Elson and Colin Prescot planned to fly the largest manned balloon in history to the EDGE OF SPACE. The first challenge for Andy and the team was to design and build a machine that could manufacture a balloon that was 1,200 feet tall, made from 8 acres of polyethylene film and 1,500 kilometres of polyester thread.
Colin and Andy were to wear space suits and use a life support system especially developed in joint collaboration with Zvezda of Moscow.
As the massive polyethylene balloon was to be flown from the UK, it was decided to inflate and deploy it from the deck of a ship. This gave the team the ability to move with the wind irrespective of its direction and thus achieve, a virtually nil wind over the deck launch situation.
In order to get “The Picture” that newspaper editors would fight over the team worked closely with QinetiQ to design and build Zephyr, a solar powered UAV with a 40 foot wingspan 5 motors, still and video cameras and an all up weight of just 13 kg.
Media Links
| |
