On September 4, 2010, with a group of friends we successfully completed the first flight to 27.6 km above central Italy of the StratoSpera amateur stratospheric balloon project. An unexpected event that threatened to turn the flight into a failure gave us this eerie photo, which shows the burst balloon that got tangled to the parachute lines during descent. It looks like an alien creature, a fictitious space jellyfish.
Here are some images and information:
* short report in English
* StratoSpera site
* photos and videos, including anaglyphs (be sure to click "Articoli precedenti" at the bottom to view more posts)
Until 2007 we didn't know such a thing was possible. Then we read about the SABLE-3 amateur high altitude balloon project, which was a source of inspiration together with later projects such as the ones by UMSF members.