Study takes to the sky

By Will Richmond
Published June 2, 2007
The Herald News

FALL RIVER – it took 10 seconds for the round, helium-filled balloon to be released into the atmosphere. Shortly after, it was nothing but a tiny speck against the sun.

Despite the balloon’s disappearance into the atmosphere, the work was just beginning for a group of students from the Matthew J. Kuss Middle School as they tracked the weather balloon’s course toward a release point 32,000 feet above Buzzards Bay.

The project was just one of many the Kuss NASA team has participated in over the years, including HAM radio contacts with astronauts on the International Space Station.

Friday’s Project included tracking the balloon as it traveled from Frank M. Silvia School to Buzzards Bay – its path determined by Friday morning’s wind direction – and testing various packaging to see which could best withstand a watery impact and protect the bundles of potato chips inside five boxes attached to the balloon.

In all, the balloon was equipped with a tail of eight boxes approximately 8 inches by 8 inches in size. Five boxes with different designs carried the potato chips to see which could best withstand the impact. The two boxes closest to the balloon held global positioning system tracking devices, and the last box held a camera to provide images of the trip.

Seventh-grader Jasmine Morris said her engineering class developed a crate which included plastic shields to protect the potato chips from wet conditions and cotton balls to help absorb the impact. “We wanted to make sure it would resist water and also be sturdy enough to hit the ground,” Morris said.

Kuss science teach Joseph Cote, who coordinates the NASA program at the Rock Street School, said the balloon would release the eight boxes at a height of 32,000 ft. via a radio signal that will drop the packages into the cold water below. As the balloon took off from Fall River, two Coast Guard boats joined another boat waiting to retrieve the packages.

Cote said the balloon will continue to travel to a height of 120,000 feet but dropping the payloads off at that height would have meant a landing closer to Nantucket, in turn making retrieval more difficult.

Cote told the roughly 100 students gathered at the launch that these are the types of projects that will hopefully guide them into the future. “NASA has spent a lot of time and energy with us because hey want you to work for them on day,” Cote said.

The project was aided by StratoStar Systems, the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium, the Christa Corrigan McAuliffe Challenger Center, the Bristol County Repeaters Association and New England Education Association.

The Massachusetts space Grant Consortium Director Jeffery Hoffman, a former astronaut who made five trips into space, told the students to reach for the stars in the further and continue putting their NASA-led science education to good use.

“You’ve been able to make experiments that are going up to space, and there is not reason you cant’ continue this,” Hoffman said. “I hope this is an experience you’ll continue to think of in the future.”