This was not my planned project. In fact I didn’t even know this kind of thing existed until fairly recently. Ever since I first saw Waldorf class 12 project presentations 11 years ago, I have been thinking about what I was going to do for it. I made plans, drew diagrams and even tried to write my speech, all while I was still in primary school. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I wanted to do something big and impressive. My earlier drafts included building an aeroplane, revamping a car, building a house, etc. Right. Time to scale down a bit.
At the end of 2016, I went on a hike in the Cederberg as part of a scout adventure, and at one of the overnight bases, there was a functional observatory, right in the middle of the Cederberg. It was an amateur observatory made by hobbyists, but they really knew what they were doing. I was fascinated by the telescopes and what was observed through them: the stars and the blackness of space. This was great inspiration to me and when I got home I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to explore the night sky. I did some research, found a contact and even sent a proposal through to the College of Teachers requesting to start my project early as it would require a lot of work.
This was all well and good, but there was something that wasn’t sitting right with me. I couldn’t figure out what it was and told myself it was nothing. Time passed and I didn’t get started due to my workload, mostly on scouting activities and my Springbok award. Every time I thought of the project I had a “wrong” feeling inside, and I couldn’t shake it.
During my social practical, which was done at the Haven night shelter in Wynberg, I was on a lunch break with my classmate Ben, and somehow we got talking about our projects and what we planned to do. I can’t remember the conversation exactly, but it took a turn and we started talking about how cool it would be to send something to space. At the mention of space my heart jumped. Then came the realization: all this time I didn’t want to simply observe the night sky, I wanted to explore it. I wanted to be in it. That’s when I knew that my project had to change and I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to get to space. Or at least something of mine to space.
Sending something to space isn’t easy. Or cheap. I started looking for ways in which to build rockets, and to my disappointment, it would cost hundreds of thousands of Rands to build a rocket that could reach space and even more if I were to use existing rockets. This realization was highly disappointing. I stopped researching, as I knew it was hopeless and instead turned to YouTube, where I could procrastinate and suppress my worries for the length of each video. I was a good while into watching funny cat videos and FailArmy, when a new video popped up in my recommended list. It was called “Journey to the Edge of Space”, which was a 360 degree video made by a channel called Seeker. I was intrigued by the title, so I watched it to see how they did it. The video showed, well, the journey to the edge of space. In the video, the team had attached a camera to a weather balloon which, when let go, ascended at an astounding rate. For the first time, I got to see what it was like to rise up above the clouds (different to an aeroplane, as ascent was vertical), and got to go so high that the sky above turned to black, just like the night sky. They did, they had reached space. Watching the video gave me goosebumps and I had to watch it again. And again. Finally I had a starting point. A new avenue to explore. I started researching the hobby, which is called High Altitude Ballooning (yes, very original). What my research showed was that it was possible to send one of these things to the edge of space for around R1000 for entry level payloads (not fantastic cameras or equipment, but ones that got the job done). This was 100 times cheaper than building a rocket and 1000 times cheaper than using one. This meant I was in business…
I watched other videos on High Altitude Ballooning (HAB), and saw that it was a fairly simple process. In essence, it is attaching a camera to a helium balloon and letting go. Seemed simple enough. There are obviously more things required, such as housing and protection, and tracking of the payload, and heating and other stuff, but it didn’t seem too complicated.
This project will be perfect for me, it is within my budget, it fulfills my hope of doing something big, and giving me an entrance into space exploration, something I had only ever dreamed about.
