In a strong contender for “science fair project of the year”, four spanish high-school students have managed to send a hand-built 1.5 kilo package of electronic sensors aloft in a weather balloon to the edge of space, 20 miles above the earth.
Included was a digital camera, which was recovered after the balloon deflated sending its cargo back to each. The camera’s data card survived re-entry and contained the photo below.
When I was a teenager, I was into model rockets. It was lots of fun, though nothing flew higher than 1000 feet. Of course post 9-11, there are all sorts of permits and such for the hobby now. Progress.
The cameras and gadgets available now are quite something.
Well done them Spanish Students!
December 4, 2008
Four British teddy bears this week ascended to the outer edges of Earth’s atmosphere.
Boldly going where few cuddly toys have gone before, the teddynauts were dressed in special spacesuits designed and made by 11- and 12-year-old pupils from Parkside and Coleridge community colleges as part of a project with Cambridge University’s spaceflight student club.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/dec/04/teddy-bears-space
It was like being smothered by a giant dumpling!
Not just scientists, but poets as well. 
Simon, there have been times you’ve irked me, but I have to say that anyone who names a thread after deep intonation: P I G S I N S P A C E ! is all right by me. 
Susan
when I was a teen, I didnt need a rocket to get into S P A C E.
Pink Floyd took care of that…
Well, at first I broke down the long word teensinspace into teen-sin-space and not teens-in-space, and I thought to myself, oh no, what has Simon found now? I thought that it was going to be some darker variant of Myspace.
Speaking of kids in space, on my evening walk yesterday I passed a young family who were taking advantage of the warm weather and were raking in the yard. A todler was standing near the sidewalk as I approached. Just as I was alongside him, he stomped his foot on a rubber bulb, and a small rocket went rising up into the air, not exactly in space, you understand. Anyway, it kind of startled me. I remember trying to make rockets with my chemistry set. A kid could get into a lot of mischief with a chemistry set. They even supplied the chemicals and gave you the instructions for making gun powder. Can you imagine that today? The personal injury lawyers, that I see advertising on TV, would have a field day.
Yes, mixing blackpowder was fun! Paper rockets made out of weedkiller were also popular, but in my memory a bit more dangerous, as the stuff tended to self-ignite when warm. My pal burned his leg horribly when some of the blotting paper soaked with dissolved weedkiller and carefully dried went off in his trouser pocket in the school yard.
Its a shame kids cannot really experiment with chemistry nowadays. Too much control takes all the excitement and danger away.
That’d be enough these days to get you terrorlisted.
Y’all have read this haven’t you?
I loved the whole Coalwood series by Homer Hickham- very authentic as far as the coal camp life, coal mining part. I can’t vouch for the rocket makin’ part.
Oh and the movie based on it was good too- October Sky
Cowtime, you didn’t mention that Homer was a West Virginian from the coalfields. It’s the law!
My older brothers clued me in that being a member of the rocket club got you out of class a couple of times a years. I always bought the models with the fins pre-built. I was lazy and not very skilled at crafting things that required exactness.
Wish I had done this when I was a teen… back then, my folks wouldn’t let my sister and I out of the cave, fearing we’d get trampled by a Wooly Mamoth.
And it shows.
I did this one year (Gr 7?). All I remember is that I ended up on retrieval team, standing up to my knees in a muddy field on a cold and drizzly day. The control centre and launch pad was at the top of the hill. We were way down at the bottom and out a ways. We couldn’t hear when a rocket had been fired, but we could hear the screams as the owners at the top demanded we find their precious bit of burned-up cardboard tube.
The retrieval team had limited success that year. So did my attempts at science.
djm
… perhaps it was for the best.
Me, I always thought that I would end up as a science experiment instead of being an active participant in one. So far, my convictions have held true to form. 