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**See This Page With Full Graphics, Pictures and Color!** CLICK HERE --> : Bears... In... SPAAAAAAACE!!!


oandapartycock
12-08-2008, 12:02 AM
Hey, it's Christmas time and my kid thought these were adorable. From the GeekDad (http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/12/bears-in-spaaaa.html) section over at Wired.

http://www.srcf.ucam.org/%7Ecuspaceflight/images/nova9selected/teddies5.jpg

http://www.srcf.ucam.org/%7Ecuspaceflight/images/nova9selected/teddies4.jpg


Students from Parkside and Colleridge schools helped to launch four teddies wearing space suits that they had designed. The teddies reached an altitude of just over 30 km (18 mi) and their temperatures were logged throughout the flight to see how they fared in the extreme cold.

The different spacesuit designs resulted in distinct difference in the temperatures of the teddies. However, we fear that the bears may all have frozen, with each dropping below -40 °C and one reaching -53 °C.

When the payload was launched, just after 11am, there were some fears that it might end up in the sea. But, with a very quick ascent, these fears were laid to rest and the payload landed 4 miles north-east of Ipswich. For the first time ever we actually made it to the landing site in time to see the payload come down!

At burst our prediction software provided us with an estimate that was less than 2 km from the actual landing site. We arrived in time to see a beautifully inflated parachute floating just a few hundred meters above our heads. More photos of the intrepid space teddies can be seen on our media page (http://www.cuspaceflight.co.uk/media.php). A press release can be found here (http://www.cuspaceflight.co.uk/Teddybears.pdf).

http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cuspaceflight/news.php

jackjack
12-08-2008, 12:51 AM
That's a pretty cool project, but I hope the kids know their bears aren't in space or 'at the edge of space' as the article said. They got 18 miles up, space starts at 62 miles, even though there is still a trace of atmosphere left for another 50 more miles.
So, they got almost a third of the way.
That's a pretty decent accomplishment, I don't mean to trivialize it, I just think a school shouldn't be misleading people about some basic astronomy.