Comments on: Hello Kitty launched into space by 7th grader

By: Robert Cruickshank

Robert Cruickshank — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:11:00 +0000

Not to detract from the awesomeness of her project, but given that she’s a student at a fundamentalist Christian school, she’s lucky that her talents are in aerospace, and not, say, evolutionary biology.

By: morcheeba

morcheeba — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:45:00 +0000

I’m not saying that the last 1.4% isn’t the hardest … kinda like eating the last chicken wing in a bucket of 100 :-)

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 07:44:00 +0000

Or NASA?

By: oasisob1

oasisob1 — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 07:43:00 +0000

Yes. Not having a mouth is what makes HK so creepy.

By: EMComments

EMComments — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 00:48:00 +0000

Well done to Lauren (and her dad) but yeah, why let the facts get in the way of a good story. It’s only a science project after all. The reason they could use a balloon to get Kitty up there iss that it isn’t space.

By: Marc

Marc — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:47:00 +0000

You need to renew your life’s outlook subscription, yours sounds expired.

By: Scratcheee

Scratcheee — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 20:44:00 +0000

Awesome.

And I haven’t said awesome in, like, twenty years.

By: Jeffrey Peltz

Jeffrey Peltz — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:54:00 +0000

Great video and project to do with a child. Good work to father and daughter.

By: BunnyShank

BunnyShank — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 18:11:00 +0000

Its a science project and a cartoon animation with a scenery better than any green screen could create, and its outstanding!

By: winkybb

winkybb — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:12:00 +0000

Hello Kittinger?

By: Bevatron Repairman

Bevatron Repairman — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:11:00 +0000

Can anyone confirm my suspicion that the reservoir at the end is Lexington Reservoir, right off Highway 17, south of Los Gatos? That’s about the right distance from Antioch, CA, and the balloon has clearly drifted to the south bay.

By: WinstonSmith2012

WinstonSmith2012 — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:06:00 +0000

Daddy had the bucks to buy FOUR GoPro2 HD cameras and a kit for everything else. The fact that she can properly assemble it all and successfully launch and recover it puts her well above many of her peers, but if she’d built the entire system from scratch using inexpensive components, I’d be much more impressed.

By: morcheeba

morcheeba — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:45:00 +0000

They did get mentioned on a major blog :-)

And there was a thank-you in the credits.

By: morcheeba

morcheeba — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:44:00 +0000

Sure, if you measure by altitude and use the 100km definition.

But, if you go by pressure… their pressure was 0.255 psi; ground level is 17.5. So, I’d say they made it 98.6% of the way to space.

By: nixiebunny

nixiebunny — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:14:00 +0000

Really, now. Where are all these videos that you claim to exist, showing Hello Kitty flying straight up 17 miles?

By: John Young

John Young — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:55:00 +0000

Yes, this sort of thing is still extremely cool.

By: McGreens

McGreens — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:51:00 +0000

At least her mouth wasn’t sown up, à la poor Miffy:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/86/Miffy.jpg/150px-Miffy.jpg

By: franko

franko — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:51:00 +0000

Curious George, of course.

By: winkybb

winkybb — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:41:00 +0000

But which monkey?

By: winkybb

winkybb — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:40:00 +0000

Yes, Kitty is much more relaxed than Baumgartner was.

By: winkybb

winkybb — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:38:00 +0000

Yes, it is still very cool indeed. If it was college students doing it as a drunken stunt, well then, no. But I just love seeing kids do this. I’d like to help my kids do this. It isn’t cheap to do, though.

By: winkybb

winkybb — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:36:00 +0000

They are that. But in this case they didn’t get good value then. You just got a glimpse of the housings. No logos, nor GoPros angled to shoot other GoPros like you often see. But we’re talking about it so, who knows? Maybe they did get VFM.

GoPro is a classic “disruptive” product/technology. By having far fewer features than the competition, it meant Sony et. al. let them fly under the radar until it was too late. “No viewfinder? No zoom? No focus? No FX? No onboard editing? Who’d buy one? Don’t worry about them!”

By: DreamboatSkanky

DreamboatSkanky — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 14:25:00 +0000

Space is everywhere.

By: a_m_l

a_m_l — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:38:00 +0000

As a dad of two girls, yes the nauseous pink can be frustrating, but the trick is to use it to your advantage. Lego Mindstorms can be much more fun when they are combined with Belville sets. When building a rocket let them pick out the paint. You can do some marvelous things together if you let them show you what is important from their perspective.

By: MarlboroTestMonkey7

MarlboroTestMonkey7 — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 13:15:00 +0000

For her next project she’ll send a monkey

By: Noctilucent Studios

Noctilucent Studios — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:49:00 +0000

Awesome!!! Especially loved how she had HK in a little silver rocket as opposed to just sitting there on a piece of styrofoam. The entire project had a very nice poetic feel to it, right down to her landing in the treetop. This feels like our eras “note in a bottle”.

By: Ray Perkins

Ray Perkins — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 11:32:00 +0000

Pretty sure GoPro would have provided them for free. They’re very good at viral marketing.

By: MarcVader

MarcVader — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:15:00 +0000

That’s quite a nice planet you have there. It’d be a shame if something were to happen to it.

By: Eric Bolt

Eric Bolt — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 09:01:00 +0000

Space is another 45 miles up.

By: Gulliver

Gulliver — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 08:38:00 +0000

It was just a Hello Kitty Balloon. The contents of the toy have been taken to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for further study, but there is no evidence to indicate Elder origins or that it was the Great Old One.