The launch of a giant space balloon in the Australian outback went badly wrong yesterday when it broke from a mooring and dragged across the desert, overturning a four-wheel drive vehicle and narrowly missing bystanders.
One witness said she felt lucky to be alive after the balloon's car-sized, unmanned gondola, carrying a heavy load of scientific equipment, careened into the vehicle parked next to hers at the launch site near Alice Springs in central Australia.
The balloon was part of a research project by academics and students at the University of California, Berkeley, and several Taiwanese universities to study gamma rays in space from 25 miles (40km) above the Earth.
As the huge balloon filled with air, it ripped from its mooring, crashing into and upturning a parked car and strewing debris across a wide area before coming to a halt. No one was injured in the accident.
4 comments:
I can imagine an entire room of scientists all shrieking at the same time. Ouch.
If you've ever visited Berkeley this is not so shocking. The Fail is strong here though, love how they zoomed in for the really disasterous part!
Did anyone else find the footage of the falling balloon (in particular from 1:23-1:39) just really beautiful? It made me think of jellyfish...
Didn't anyone ever tell the NASA boys the old saying for bolts: "RIGHTY-tighty, lefty-loosey"????
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