So probably about two years ago, there were a rash of amateur videos of people cheaply sending cameras high enough into the atmosphere to photograph the curvature of the earth. Very cool stuff. Recently, a similar video has popped up from two Canadian high school students.
This time, along with the camera, a tiny LEGO astronaut went up too. The entire project took 4 months to plan, but only cost the students $400 total. Their apparatus consisted of three point and shoot cameras, a wide angle video camera, and a cell phone with a GPS app. They packaged them all in a lightweight styrofoam box, with some disposable hand warmers so the cameras would function at high altitude, and set it aloft with an $85 weather balloon.
Full story here (LA Times)
It took a little over an hour for the cameras to reach their max altitude of about 80,000 feet, and a half hour for them to drift back down to earth via their homemade parachute.
Not a bad test flight for the first LEGO astronaut.
