Local science teacher launches weather balloon 87,000 feet high

Local science teacher Derrick Johnson launched a helium weather balloon that went up in the sky over 87,000 feet to "near space," a place  "where you and I would not survive, no matter how much oxygen we would breathe or how many coats we would put on," Johnson told The Star in an email. 

A video on YouTube shows the flight as the balloon goes up and up, showing Lake Roosevelt and Banks Lake, as well as other surrounding areas from a greater and greater distance, eventually showing the curvature of the earth and "near space." 

Johnson launched the weather balloon equipped with cameras from Emerson Park in Wilbur on July 25 and shared the resulting videos on YouTube. 

The balloon, launched with about a 4-foot diameter, expands up to 20 feet as it increases in elevation because as the air pressure drops, the balloon begins to expand, Johnson explained, eventually bursting at a high altitude.

"I had hoped it would go to 100,000 ft, but it was in the high 80,000's when it burst," Johnson said.

The balloon was attached to a plastic-foam cooler that housed the gadgets for the experiment. 

Two GoPro cameras recorded its journey up into the sky, as well as an older cell phone which took pictures every seven minutes and transmitted them down to the ground using an amateur (ham) radio. 

"This served to give us a visual of what was going on and provide some documentation at altitude if the balloon were to become lost or destroyed," Johnson said.

Other equipment included a Global Positioning System receiver and an amateur radio Terminal Node Controller, which transmitted the GPS data using another ham radio.

From the ground, the signals showed where the balloon was on a map.

When the balloon was above 5,000 feet or so, Johnson explained, the transmissions were also received by the Automatic Packet Reporting Service, an amateur group of radio enthusiasts that posts the data on websites, allowing a backup plan for tracking the balloon.

"Unfortunately, the GPS tracking system failed at about 38,000 feet," Johnson said, adding that it was likely due to the cold temperatures (0 degrees Fahrenheit) recorded at that level.

"When the balloon stopped transmitting location data, my family and I were disheartened," Johnson said. "The photographic system continued to send nice images, but we didn't know where it was with any precision. I was hoping that it would transmit a photo as it would near the ground and give us something to work with, but its battery failed too."

A little luck and a farmer helped Johnson find his balloon. On Aug. 28, over a month later, the balloon was found outside of Ritzville.

"A local farmer called the numbers I had put on the outside and I came down to pick it up," Johnson said. "The whole thing had been rolling around in the dust for a month and was most probably blown around from field to field with the windstorms we had had."

Johnson said the balloon flew about 36 miles from launch to landing near Sylvan Lake outside of Ritzville, and took an estimated 80-mile zigzag path to get there, with a top speed of about 58 miles per hour.

"The distance seems small, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack," Johnson said. "After it stopped transmitting, one just gets a sinking sense of how utterly enormous the land is and how limited our senses can be."

When they found it, a cell phone and one of the GoPros had been knocked off. 

But one of the GoPros worked, and that is the footage he used for his YouTube videos. 

"I was wanting to gain experience for a new course that had been proposed to me (Space Science) and I thought it a good exercise for the students to get some insight into where 'Space' begins," Johnson said. "A case in point is that people must wear full-body pressure suits (spacesuits) from about 62,000 ft on up, otherwise one's body fluids spontaneously boil from your own internal heat."

Ouch!

Johnson hopes to do another balloon launch with his students, having them build the components for it and be actively involved with it, when COVID-19 and weather allows for that to happen.

The videos include the launch, "mucking about with computer modules," the farmer finding the balloon, and the flight itself which lasts for about two and a half hours. 

The flight video can be found at https://youtu.be/nhivXYUEe94 and the associated videos can be found on the same Permanently Curious channel on YouTube.

"If you like to sit on a mountain and love the view, this is for you," the video description reads, suggesting you leave it playing on a screen while working. "Anyone from the upper Columbia Basin should see this video. Its a casual, quiet march up to more than 87,000 feet with the sky melting away to the blackness of space at mid-day."