posted by
janrinok
on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:15PM
from the astronauts-deserve-desert-too dept.
from the astronauts-deserve-desert-too dept.
neagix writes:
"3 Sicilian space hobbyists have successfully completed mission number 001 of their "Cannolo Transporter," all documented by 2 on-board cameras (video).
From the original article (in Italian) (translated):
A cannolo with ricotta and cherry on top (made of polymer clay) reached the edge of space with the help of a balloon filled with helium gas. The cannolo was mounted on board the "Cannolo Transporter" spaceship, made of recycled materials. The balloon took off from Rocca di Cerere (Enna) and nearly reached the altitude of 30000 meters before exploding because of the thin atmosphere.
Does anybody have Twinkies to spare for mission 002?"
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First Cannolo in Space Successfully Launched
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(Score: 5, Funny) by snick on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:25PM
I love machine translations.
We need a turing test for machine translations that involves being able to tell the difference between the translation and random text.
(Score: 3, Funny) by regift_of_the_gods on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:27PM
That pastry's got to get to at least 80,000 meters [space.com] before mission control can uncork the Asti.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:54PM
the RED color is too harsh on eyes .. please change to something bearable
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:31PM
push your monitor options button, go to colours, choose custom and turn the red all the way down to 0 and you'll be golden. not literally.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Fluffeh on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:32PM
I have read a large number of these "Lets get a balloon to the edge of space..." stories and have always wondered whether there is a legal/space treaty things that would stop a couple of these guys mounting a rocket at this point and actually having a crack at getting to "real" space as such - or whether it is just technical/expense issues that stop the next step.
Does anyone know how much easier it is to get a rocket into LEO with a starting point 30km up? Is it a lot easier from that altitude, or still much of a muchness in terms of how powerful/expesnive the rocked would be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hubie on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:42PM
You are talking about a rockoon [hobbyspace.com].
(Score: 1) by neagix on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:42PM
In this case they got authorization from all the authorities (ENAC, ENAV and the Italian 41st Wing of Sigonella) and the guy calls some center right before releasing the balloon (can be seen in the video), so I guess that if they mounted a rocket without saying a word they would get in trouble.
The alternative would be to do it without any authorization, but that's already illegal AFAIK.
There is also an U.S. navy military base right there, I guess they wouldn't be very happy about such "toys" flying around..
(Score: 3, Informative) by nukkel on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:57PM
I guess that's mutual then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalese_cable_car_di saster_(1998) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by neagix on Thursday March 06 2014, @06:51AM
Other weird accidents in the area... [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Thursday March 06 2014, @11:10AM
That's spooky, thanks for the link
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:59PM
"Does anyone know how much easier it is to get a rocket into LEO with a starting point 30km up?"
Virtually none. The 666 rule, 60kft at mach 6 is 6% of the potential and kinetic energy to orbit. Not even sure if its true but its mighty close.
Two things help, you're already above "lots of" the atmosphere so you can get away with larger expansion nozzle without it collapsing, and you pretty much don't have to worry about aerodynamic fairings since you're above most of the atmosphere. Max Q is probably going to be wimpy.
Its immensely harder because now if you have to check a connection 2 secs before the engines fire, you need to fly a dude up. Also the tanks have been evaporating fuel for hours as it slowly gets up there. You have no idea where it'll launch and the gyro platform has been swinging around for an hour so good luck with the nav. Finally rather than managing rocket scientists, some working big, some small, now you need a whole new dept to manage balloonists. What a mess!
(Score: 1) by BradTheGeek on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:19PM
IIRC orbit is about escape velocity (speed), not altitude. Floating up in a balloon does not get you speed, however air resistance to a rocket would be less because of altitude, but if you don't get the speed you still fall back to earth, no matter how high up you get.
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday March 06 2014, @12:39AM
The escape velocity bit is and isn't really true. You can get into space moving at 1 meter per second for a long time, so in that way it is false. Where it sort of becomes true is in fuel vs weight for a rocket. If you have a lot of thrust and get to a faster velocity, you don't have to carry the fuel for as long. Basically, faster velocity means you don't need to spend as much fuel "carrying" the rest of the fuel.
Where velocity comes into play again is when you are actually in orbit. If you aren't orbiting fast enough, gravity will be pulling you back inwards, basically a big spiral towards the earth. If you are moving too fast, you will gradually move away from the earth. This is explained really well with Newton's Cannonball [wikipedia.org] which is a thought experiment where it will clearly identify what is an escape velocity.
(Score: 4, Informative) by jimbot on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:26PM
(Score: 3, Funny) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:37PM
Is this the Mob testing new methods for waste/body disposal into space? no fees to dump there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:48PM
Fuggit about it!!
(Score: 2) by EvilJim on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:40PM
ok, ok... I didn't see/say nuttin.
(Score: 1) by Ellis D. Tripp on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:44PM
Leave the gun. Take the Cannoli...
"Society is like stew. If you don't keep it stirred up, you end up with a lot of scum on the top!"--Edward Abbey
(Score: 2, Funny) by krishnoid on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:35PM
For my money, still not as watchable as putting Hello Kitty [space.com] into the stratosphere.
(Score: 2, Funny) by qwade on Wednesday March 05 2014, @11:37PM
Whoa! Cannolo in space - tubular!
Never go in against a Sicilian when pastry is on the line
(and the one I'm most proud of...)
SPastry. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the helium balloon "Cannolo Transporter". It's ongoing mission to explore strange new space baking methods. To seek out new ricotta and new cherries. To boldly go where no bakery product has gone before...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 06 2014, @01:08AM
Thank you and the submitter for not saying "a cannoli."
One of my pet peeves is screwed up Italian plurals, like when someone at the café orders "a biscotti."
I had a package of tortellini once that said in the cooking directions to "separate the tortellinis with a fork if they stick together." :)
(Score: 1) by M. Baranczak on Thursday March 06 2014, @03:00AM
Tortellini generally don't appear in the singular form, because why the fuck would you want to eat just one? Also see: pierogi.