Interview with Dr. Chris Yoder
Narration:
Transcript:
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Hi, Chris.
Thank you so much for joining us.
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Thank you for having me.
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So you're part of NASA's
Balloon Program.
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What is the difference
between a NASA Scientific Balloon versus
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a regular hot air balloon?
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Good question.
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So, hot air balloons are air filled
and the air is heated
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to create the buoyancy of the lift
that gives them flight.
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Generally,
they float at a couple thousand feet
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and they go up and down
in a matter of hours.
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Scientific Balloons,
on the other hand, are quite different.
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So, our largest balloons can fit
a football field inside their equator,
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and they can fly for much longer.
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So, payload capacity is
about 8,000 pounds -
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several SUVs. The duration can
be up to five
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or six weeks at a time, and the altitudes
can be up to 160,000 feet,
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about four or five times
the height of a commercial airliner.
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Wow. What a difference.
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Yeah, that's incredible.
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And you launch all over the globe.
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So you launch from New Mexico
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in the US, New Zealand,
and even McMurdo Station in Antarctica.
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Why do you launch
from all those different places?
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In short,
we go where the science needs us to go.
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Some scientists need northern hemisphere.
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Science for galaxies and star formations.
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That's why we go to Sweden.
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Same thing in the southern hemisphere.
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That's why we go to Antarctica.
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Most missions
need some kind of trial or test system,
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so they'll fly from New Mexico
to prove their science or
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or even just collect science
at a shorter duration.
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And then for missions
that are a little more risky,
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we'll go out to PMRF in Hawaii.
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So can you describe to me
what launch days like?
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it's an incredible feeling. Right?
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So, you see the balloon be released.
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You hear the rustle of fabric
and the rush of the wind
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as it stands up. You see the
balloon be released
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from the vehicle and ascend.
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And it's just - it just gives you chills
every time you watch it.
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It's a really great feeling.
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That sounds incredible.
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So how many of these balloon experiments
have been Sun focused or eclipse focused?
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So, about 8 to 10% of our portfolio
is heliophysics missions.
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One of the ones that stands out in
my mind is one
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I got to see launch in 2019
from New Mexico.
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It's called The BITSE Mission,
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and it was looking at the corona,
or the kind of the outer edge of the Sun,
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and looking at how that behaves
under different conditions.
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That sounds amazing.
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Thank you so much for joining us.
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Thanks again for having me.