#balloon astronomy

[progtracks]

PROGRESSIVE TRACKS SHOW #271 (Summer!) - Progzilla Radio

Progressive Tracks Show #271 (Summer!), originally broadcast on Saturday, July 21, 2018, is now available to download or listen to anytime you desire. Yep, the sun and warm weather’s finally hit… and after sprucing things up a bit here, I’m feelin’ pretty good about the ol’ ProgTracks settlement. It’s Summer… and the livin’ is easy, …

Summer (the podcast) is here... don't miss it!  

It sounds good... and it's not as sweaty as the season).  😉

- Mike “ProgTracks” Pollack

[strictlyastronomy]

Airships are dusty relics of aviation history. Lighter-than-air vehicles conjure images of the Hindenburg, in its glory and destruction, and the Goodyear Blimp, a floating billboard that barely resembles its powerful predecessors.

But now engineers are designing sleek new airships that could streak past layers of cloud and chart a course through the thin, icy air of the stratosphere, 65,000 feet above the ground — twice the usual altitude of a jetliner. Steered by scientists below, these aerodynamic balloons might be equipped with onboard telescopes that peer into distant galaxies or gather oceanic data along a coastline.

The cost of sending research hardware into space remains exceptionally high, yet the need to get above the atmosphere is dictated by science goals in certain parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Efforts such as the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), balloons, and sounding rockets address these needs now, but the durations they remain aloft are limited. Future airship designs may carry astronomy payloads to altitudes beyond 20,000 metres for weeks or even months at a time at a fraction of the cost of spaceflight.