Burt Rutan Archives

Space Ventures Edge of space

This is so cool, this is what the edge of space looks like. I have known Brian Lim for a year or so and I thought he was a pretty smart guy but people just never cease to amaze me. Brian posted some pictures last week of his first test flight of a new space testing platform he has put together called Space Ventures. Brian works out of Fishburners Incubation space in Ultimo but appears to have been very busy since the last time I saw him.

He is still very closed about what he will say but basically the platform is for testing satellites and components by using weather balloons to get them as close to their normal operating environment as possible without having to officially launch them with a big assed rocket.

So they strap components to a platform which is launched and taken as high as a weather balloon will go, which according to Wikipedia can be upto 40km.

He wont give us details about customers, his backers or pictures of the balloon rig he used, he will say however that he mounted two Go Pro Hero cameras to the rig and that his platform provides a very inexpensive method to test compared to the costs of failing or launching a test which is in most cases not feasible.

This is the sort of project that we love.

His site is here http://spaceventures.co/about-us