Joseph Hansen (that’s me), is an 18-year-old grade 12 student at the Constantia Waldorf School in Cape Town. Waldorf has an interesting curriculum and is unorthodox in today’s society as students get the opportunity to understand and learn the world and their environment by seeing and doing, instead of reading what a textbook tells them. The final requirement for a student to obtain the Waldorf certificate is to undertake an individual project of his or her choosing, that challenges them unlike anything before.
This is where Joseph’s story comes in. He is passionate about space and what lies beyond the boundaries of this Earth, and this project is an opportunity to explore this avenue. Of course it is nearly impossible for a student, especially from South Africa, to try and reach space with our current technology, as it is just too expensive. However, it is possible to reach the edge of space. This is done by use of meteorological weather balloons and Helium or Hydrogen. Essentially, one is able to simply attach a camera to the balloon, and let it rise to the boundaries of space while it clicks away at the beauties below.
High altitude photography has been around for a long time in other countries, and although rather prevalent in the northern parts of South Africa, the number of launches in the southern parts, and more specifically, Cape Town, is not a proud number. Though the weather service sends up balloons every day, none of them are visually recorded from its perspective, so we never get to see what the balloon sees, so these missions are truly unique and symbolize humanities desire to explore and understand.
Through this project, he is trying to excite people of South Africa about space exploration, and show them that it is possible for anyone. The project is mostly aimed at students and young adults, as it could serve as inspiration for any dreams or aspirations they may have thought unattainable.
This website houses all of Joseph’s journal entries over the course of the project, the good, the bad and the beautiful. It also contains the best photos and videos taken during the project and links to other useful websites, should anyone want to attempt to try and do something similar and need a starting point.