balloons

A New Sputnik Moment

When an F-22 fighter jet destroyed a Chinese high altitude balloon last week, many saw the latest high tech aircraft deflating an old-fashioned novelty. The ...

Airpup production patterns

Final plans for the production Airpup design are now available on Github, released as open hardware under the CERN Open Hardware Licence.

Helium Supplier Map Built on uMap & OSM

With the pandemic in full swing, helium is rather expensive and has been difficult to get. I’ve therefore been keeping track of suppliers and their offerings...

Event videography with Airpup

Flying Airpup at events is fun and garners a warm response. People notice Airpup and smile, then go back to what they were doing. The curious follow Airpup’s...

Airpup repository on Github

On Github you’ll find Airpup’s repository of 2D patterns for construction as well as a corresponding 3D model.

What is a kite balloon?

Kite balloons are balloons that fly like kites, and they were the first reliable way to fly and land in the same place.

Out and about with Airpup

I’ve been out flying the full-size Airpup and tweaking the rigging over the past two months. Below are some of the photos and videos I’ve been taking.

Introducing Airpup

Airpup is small for a balloon, because Airpup is a kite balloon. Airpup sips helium and eats high winds. Back Airpup on Crowd Supply.

getting a high altitude balloon back

What I want to do fly a high altitude balloon and get it back. This means tracking where it goes and calling home. I want to use GPS to track the flight, an...

Reed Arts Week

The talk and workshop went great. I was too busy to photograph the flights, but will get photos soon.  Su Liu came up with a great double-layer heat seaming ...

Reed Arts Week, RAW: Geographies

I’m proud to be participating in Reed’s Art Week. I’ll be giving** a lecture and demonstration of aerospace in the arts and Grassroots Mapping tools on Satur...

Open Hardware Summit Notes

Met and ran into fellow grassroots mapping folks Bonny Gregory and Cesar Harada, and my old roommate Isaac Ravishankara.

Grassroots Mapping PDX: test conclusions

With help from my Dad, RJ Steinert, Samantha Mitchell, Robby Kraft, and Molly Danielsson, I’ve been flying balloons most weekends since the workshop in June,...

GrassrootsMappingPDX: Heat Seaming

Here’s the instructional video from the workshop on heat seaming balloons.  If you have the space and equipment, this will produce a lighter, more air-tight ...

warhol while you wait

I’ll have photos and videos from Grassroots Mapping up soon, Special thanks to Dustin Zemel for documenting.

Today went great

Thanks Sabrina, Lindsey, & Molly for bringing food, Dustin & Jane for documenting, Robby, Anna, Wade, Tuuli, Joel, Samantha, Dennis, & Scott for ...

Thank You Lippman Co.

**Lippman Co. party supplies **gave me a business discount and two free days of tank rental on helium, thanks!

Helium Dispersion Through HDPE

In conversations on the Grassroots Mapping google group we’ve been wondering how long a homemade Polyethylene helium balloon could stay aloft.  At what rate ...

Thank You Kite Studio

A huge thanks to Kite Studio, who just gave me a free shipping upgrade so we could have enough supplies for our workshop this Saturday!

a number of updates

This blog has been falling behind, I’m just going to summarize what I’ve been up to.

Quick Links

I’ve been very busy with a trans-continental move and more… So I’m going to try to just post links regularly, rather than longer things.

Aerospace Resolutions for a New Year

I know I’ve been talking a lot about mutoscopes (that thing took all my time), but I really will get back to balloons.  Here’s a shot of a new design I’m wor...

No/Low Tech Magazine

Kris de Decker produces some of the most insightful and well-researched articles on technology anywhere on the internet.  He has a simple premise- novel “hig...

Romanians to space with a solar balloon?

Real quick, this came in via Yahoo Solar Balloons group. I didn’t even know these guys were working. The record of balloon stages for rocket launches is a me...

Boy Floated Away- NOT EVEN POSSIBLE

Helium can lift approximately 65lb per 1000 cubic ft. From the images in the video, the balloon was no more than 12ft in diameter, or approximately 900 cubic...

Airship Profile Simulator

over at AirshipWorld, Andreas has created a new version of his airship profile simulator.  It’s only good for rotationally symetrical pressurized envelopes (...

The First Self-Blogging Aerostat?

I’ve recently gotten in touch with Chris Fries in Chicago through the Balloon_Sked mailing list for amateur near space balloon missions.  He’s not going to n...

Aerospace at Toorcamp

Several amateurs played in aerospace around Toorcamp, and many more space lovers and hobbiests were present. JonM from Hackerbot, who is one of the leads on ...

Back from Toorcamp & exhausted

I achieved my primary goal of getting a ham radio license, and I met all sorts of amazing people. If only one of them gets back to me I’ll be elated (already...

Magnificent Flight, Failed Recovery

I spent the last two weeks of March in the SF/Bay Area, and while there decided to try a new balloon. My intent- record the sounds of California by air. I...