The final installment in my agonizingly prolonged series of posts about launch day. This picks up with the beginning of inflation, and ends when everyone goes inside to start doing real work. Or, at least everyone goes inside and agonizes over altitude data until we can start doing real work.
The most disappointing part about this series is that safety regulations forced us to all be inside for the actual launch and early ascent.
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- Ready to Inflate
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- And so it begins
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- The tiny person-shaped helium-filler at the other side (actually, you can tell this is Cory, and Curtis at the first side)
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- Very soon, the balloon is noticeably inflated and hard to hold down
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- The balloon wobbles after being let go
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- All the while, filling continues…
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- …and continues
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- Wider scene (for even better, remember the panoramas)
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- Balloon with the assortment of sleds it requires
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- The balloon is approaching dangerous inflatedness. I must retreat to the safety of the highbay deck with maximum rapidity
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- Right after I take one more picture of BLAST
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- And the parachute
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- Then from the deck, I get a safe picture of BLAST
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- Tristan takes his “ghetto timelapse”, counting to ten and pressing the shutter
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- The deck watchers. Everyone else is inside or still on the pad
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- The scene in portrait
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- Piball flying one thousand feet above
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- The balloon is getting full (or, as full as it gets on the ground)
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- I go inside to visit Laura and Barth (and Natalie and Lorenzo)
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- Need a few more shots of BLAST before launch
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- Really happening! One of the fill tubes is tied off
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- Riding the man-lift to remove the pump tube and seal everything up
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- Fully tied off and ready to go
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- The BLAST team members on the pad were told to leave “as quickly as possibly”. Matt complied to the highest possible degree
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- Mark follows behind
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- Then, we receive a radio call that we all have to go inside the highbay. Having previously been told we were allowed to be outside, we were pissed
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- This is how we saw the launch. Numbers on a computer screen
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- As soon as we’re allowed, everyone rushes outside
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- We actually launched this thing!
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- Michael filming. He had left his camera on a tripod during launch, and was kind enough to give us a copy of the video
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- BLAST getting smaller
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- And smaller
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- Cleanup over at the pad
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- And even smaller
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- Gabe and Luke return
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- Still receding into the distance. The sky is so clear that BLAST can be seen at float for a day, before disappearing under the horizon
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- One last photograph for good measure. Goodbye BLAST!
Yeah BLAST! Congratulations on a successful launch. May all your scientific data come true!
Thank you again for the photos.
Lois
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