Awesome: Father & Son DIY Satellite Captures HD Video from 100,000 ft.

By Nancy Atkinson - October 6, 2010 at 10:01 AM UTC | Space Exploration

This is a great: amateur rocketeers Luke Geissbuhler and his son Max launched their own DIY satellite via a weather balloon from New York, and using an HD video camera captured some amazing video of the contraption's rise to near the edge of space (closer than a lot of us will ever get, anyway....) and its plummeting fall. You gotta love their enthusiasm and their "flight tests" at the beginning of the video. It might help that the Dad is a

photographer that works in Hollywood films,

but then again, I think Max's countdown and lollipop were the real impetus behind the successful mission. They were able to track the device with GPS, and recover the camera. Lucky for us!

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com