Hey NASA, Kick Rocks

WOW

Ever wonder what happens when students from MIT get bored? I know of course because I graduated from MIT with President’s-Fucking-Stellar-Honors, which is reserved for the kind of people that do THIS.

“The two students put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth. Instead of rockets, boosters, and expensive control systems, they filled a weather balloon with helium and hung a styrofoam beer cooler underneath to carry a cheap Canon A470 compact camera. Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Look at that picture above! Two kids (from MIT, I know) took that picture with a camera hung from a damn balloon that they floated up into space, with a GPS attached! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? SPACE!

“Two weeks ago, on Sept. 2, at the leisurly post-breakfast hour of 11:45 AM, the balloon was launched from Sturbridge, Massachusettes. Lee and Yeh took a road trip in order to stop prevailing winds from taking the balloon out onto the Atlantic, and checked in on the University of Wisconsin’s balloon trajectory website to estimate the landing site.”

They also used some duct tape and the total cost was $148. NASA, you listening!?!

I really don’t even know how to describe how awesome these guys are. I mean, they’re on the same awesomeness level as Megan Fox’s mons, Tom Brady’s taint, and Angelina Jolie performing fellatio on me painted gold like in Beowulf. They’re absurdly awesome.

They even calculated where they would get cell phone service so they could track the GPS when it landed. 18 miles into the atmosphere, and when the balloon finally burst it took 40 minutes for the cooler to drop back to earth! Think about that for a second!!!

WTF!