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by vgurgov 4983 days ago
Its truly amazing to see how far few hundred bucks can get you this days, but can we please stop calling these stratosphere launches 'sending to space'? Is it just me or 'sending balloon to space' sounds like joke?

Seems launching another one(or even few) could be cheaper than searching for this one...
2 comments
ChuckMcM 4983 days ago
Well there is the convention that space starts at 100km up [1] but the atmosphere extends much higher just getting thinner and thinner. For a lot of people space starts when the sky is black during the 'day time' and you can see the curvature of the Earth, but of course that occurs much sooner, like 31km (~100,000') Balloons can reach 100,000' (Baumgartner jumped from 125,000' for example)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line

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zik 4983 days ago
The definition of "near space" says it starts at 60,000ft.
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