You're doin' it wrong

Rip Skyfrog ;-;7  He was a hero and a real human bean

What kind of psychopath sends a frog into the troposphere without a climate conditioned life support capsule to meet his basic biological needs?

Manned sky platform?

Researching weather balloon prices led me to an interesting thought experiment. On a budget, could I put together something one person could live in comfortably, suspended from balloons? I had what I thought were modest plans for a spherical wooden/plastic cabin at first that, after weight and cost calculation, turned out to be fanciful and unrealistic. Ultimately after cutting out the fat I got down to using a "Portaledge", basically a hanging tent designed for cliff climbers, as the living space. The whole thing, frame + rainfly, is only 15lbs. Add a sleeping bag, food and water and extra clothes as well as a small thermoelectric wood fired portastove for warmth and to power LED lights, and we'll assume that's 35lbs. Add my own weight, 180lbs, and add another 5lbs to guarantee positive buoyancy. That gives you a payload weight of 220lbs.

Now for the balloons. I don't understand why, but balloons with a diameter of 7' are very reasonably priced at around $12 apiece, whereas any diameter above that and the prices quickly get into the hundreds of dollars per balloon. So, sticking with 7' diameter balloons with a net lifting capacity of 4lbs each, you're looking at 55 balloons, for around $700 after shipping. Total cost after balloons, portaledge, supplies and helium would be about $2,000. Shockingly affordable for a campsite in the sky. Moor it at a low altitude within range of cell towers and you've got internet access on your phone/tablet, which can recharge from the stove, or run continuously from thin film solar mounted to the tent exterior for $200-$300 extra. Pretty cozy, right? Kicking back in your warm sleeping back, little stove hanging from the peak of the tent crackling and keeping the interior toasty, led lights for reading, browsing your favorite websites all of this at a thousand feet in the air.

Balloon purchased.

White, so it won't be too visible. 7 foot diameter as that's still excessive and I want to under-inflate it to insure against it bursting. It still has the lifting capacity that I can expand the base to 2 or 3 times current weight and it will still fly. Watch this space.

I swear I had nothing to do with this.

More Skystation progress

All four sleeping modules are now added. I'm letting the hambros explore and get accustomed to the new layout for an hour or two before returning them to their much larger "land base". I'm pleased with the look of Skystation, it's really turning out well, has that "space station look" to it. Next up, adding the electronics, and rigging the supports w/fishing line in preparation for the balloon.

Sky Station WIP

Here's what I put together last night. Not much so far, but you can see by the base, those are the four cylindrical living modules I plan to mount radially around the outer wall of the top level. Somewhat modest, but this is just the Mk1. I've discovered from weighing what's built so far that it all weighs much less than I assumed it would. I've found a $34 latex weather balloon (incl. shipping) 8 foot diameter on eBay that will lift 7lbs and the skystation as-is doesn't quite reach 1lb. This means future skystations may be considerably larger and better equipped. For now, I'm content to build this small "outpost in the sky" to test the idea for feasibility, before committing to anything grander in scope.

Skystation construction has begun.

In anticipation of warmer weather to come, I've begun building the Skystation in earnest. The two vertically oriented modules with climbing tube and water bottle are complete. Yet to be added are the cylindrical modules jutting off the upper section. I am leaving out the lead acid battery as mentioned in the last post, power will be sent from the ground or from a much smaller/lighter onboard lithium battery instead, lower module will be used for bulk food storage.

Pictures soon.