Helios launches into The Stratosphere

Send a beer to space?
Why?
Why not?

A little bird recently told me that Hoyne Brewing from Victoria BC was about to release a new beer, Helios, a delicious malt forward Dortmunder named after the Greek god of the Sun.

After spending a an hour or two researching high altitude weather balloon lift ratios and wind currents the idea seemed feasible enough. I bought a 600g latex balloon online and started designing a robust space craft out of spare junk in the garage and leftover crap from behind the fridge in the basement.

Ok, so it didn’t quite make it to “Outer Space” Space… but it did make it to approximately 110,000 ft (or 33.5 km) a region defined by Wikipedia as “near Space”. Stable low earth orbit starts at around 160 km… a few kilometers out of my spare parts budget. Read the rest of this entry »