This is the full story on how the Space Shuttle took flight once more.
I've always been profoundly inspired by spaceflight, the Lego Shuttle was the only space program I could afford.
The story begins in mid-November 2011 with me trying to find someone to support a rocketry project of mine entitled 'October Sky', I found Steve Sammartino on twitter one night and asked and for his Skype in a PM, him thinking I was another person from the business world accepted my request.
We chated a bit and he wasn't too sure about my October Sky, then I mentioned one of the things in my 'to-do' list would be a high altitude balloon experiment.
I showed him my previous work (steam engines, a jet engine and and some rocketry)he was impressed by my passion & determination and decided to fund my cosmic experience.
We had to send something up, so after some debate Steve came up with the Lego Space Shuttle as a payload, which was a brilliant idea!. He is also teaching me valuable skills and we are progressing from something small (the Lego Shuttle), to something way bigger (Top Secret), so stay tunned!
The biggest problem was getting a flight clearance, in my country (Romania) there is A LOT of bureaucracy and a 45 day (minimum) waiting period and even then there would be next to no chance for me, a teenager getting such a thing.
After some research I found out every EU country has different regulations for this things, Germany was by far the best with my father being there for work.
I only got all the equipment through mail right before Christmas, on the 21st-22nd I built the rig and on the 23rd left for Germany.
The first days had terrible conditions, the jet streams kept dropping my shuttle into the Czech Republic, and on one particular day the prediction software was indicating a 350km Est landing site (far far away!).
On 31st of December things looked better (250km S-E), it was a now or never moment!
We got everything in the car and found a small muddy field near Lauda-Königshofen to deploy our gear.
We were in a big hurry to launch within the flight window appointed so we quickly filled the balloon, tied the parachute, payload and released it into the heavens.
After this I checked with my laptop in the chase-car to see if it's sending data and we started getting the first position reports (every 10 minutes). After about 30 minutes we headed off in the general direction of the balloon losing contact at 18000m (GPS signal limit). I waited anxiously to re-gain contact which happened in about 1 hour from the loss of contact, only it was 200km away by now.
A couple more position reports and it was on the ground 240km S-E in a very remote densely forested area of S-E Germany (2-3 houses here and there).
We passed by the shuttle a couple of times before noticing it in the snow, it was undamaged.
After playing the video we were in total awe, I still find it hard to belive that it was actually up there!
I lacked the computing power to edit the full HD, so I had to wait 2 months to borrow someone's laptop and do the job. I wish to thank Anca for the help editing it, and if there is a computer company out there, I would appreciate your support.
Equipment used:
1600g Weather Ballon
Rocketmodel parachute - slowing things down on the descent
Spot GPS - for recovery
GoPro Hero - video camera
Kodak Zx1 - video camera which took shit images I couldn't even use
New Trent - external battery for the GoPro (broke down before leaving for Germany)
Handwarmers - keepin' it warm at -50 Celsius
40mm Sytrofoam - building the box
Fishingwire - attached the shuttle by 5 wires
LED Beacon - in case of night recovery
Balsa wood - made the camera arm from it to obtain that filming angle.
And of course: Lego Shuttle model 3367
