Toronto teens add new chapter to Canadian space program
Who says you need a national space program to explore the outer reaches of Earth’s atmosphere? These two Canadian teens did it by themselves, with a little help from Lego.
Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad may just be the first people to launch a Lego man into the stratosphere.
There’s no question about it – the desire to explore is hard-wired into human DNA and ever since we evolved the ability to adapt to new environments, as a species we’ve been on a non-stop voyage.
But exploration isn’t always easy. Depending on where you want to go, you could be faced with technical, cultural, political and financial hurdles – some of which may prove to be impossible to overcome.
Just don’t tell that to Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, two 17-year-olds from Toronto’s Agincourt Collegiate Institute. Ho and Muhammad just proved that with the right combination of drive and ingenuity, even the exploration of space is within reach and you don’t have to call up NASA (or perhaps more fittingly, the Russian Federal Space Agency) to make it happen.
Earlier this month, the two budding explorers sent a home-made, unmanned module up to the very edges of our atmosphere via a weather balloon and recorded their journey on 4 separate cameras. Actually, that’s not perfectly accurate. The module may have been unmanned, but it wasn’t without a passenger.
Muhammad and Ho decided that at least one space tourist deserved to be on-board for their historic first flight and the honour fell, quite fittingly, to a brave Lego man who the teens super-glued to their module. The poor plastic fellow likely received little in the way of a mission briefing, but he was equipped with a Canadian flag. We can only guess that this was sufficient compensation for the tiny astronaut since, as the photos and video clearly show, the smile never left his face.
According to an interview the pair gave to The Toronto Star, the whole endeavour took 4 months of planning and cost $400. It wasn’t an attempt to score extra marks in their science class: ”They just thought it would be cool.”
The flight itself lasted 97 minutes and reached an approximate altitude of 24 km. While not quite the arena of space shuttles and satellites, that distance puts the module well into the official stratosphere which starts at 20 km from sea level, and it was more than high enough for the captured imagery to show the curvature of the Earth in the background.
In case you’re wondering, Muhammad has plans to become an aircraft technician while Ho is looking to become an entrepreneur. My advice to the young explorers: stay in touch. In a few more years you might be the most exciting thing to happen to space since Richard Branson and Burt Rutan put their collective talents together to create the space tourism outfit that is Virgin Galactic.
really? they’re only kids and to send a lego man that high up on a 400 dollar budget is remarkable. at least give them that much credit. i doubt anyone of us could have thought on the same thing or accomplished it! so relax, its news. its entertaining and they got some great footage. go read a newspaper if you want news.
Wow! This is truly simply amazing!
While other countries such as India, China, Russia, and the ESA all have rockets to get into space. What does Canada use? A weather balloon to get there… Well, not all the way there.
We should be all so very proud that this is making global headlines.
Muhammad,
Think twice before you consider taking aircraft maintenance engineer as you career. The job is interesting but shift work, work environment, pay, job opportunity, job security, etc., are not rosy.
Peter
That’s pretty cool! I think I wanted to do something like that when I was 17 too. That was before Lego was around, so I probably would have sent up a little army guy instead .
Yeah great it all fun and games until the balloon and the other crap get sucked into a jet engine and damage it or worse. Besides what was so tough about this? They attached a plastic man and a camera to a balloon and let it go? Sorry not getting the difficulty here??
Actually, engineers have stated that a jet engine can withstand a human body through its turbines without harm, so a weather balloon would be like confetti through a fan.
There is nothing illegal about what these boys, or launches before them did. Other story sources included that they checked all safety requirements. Also, none of the agencies or professors contacted about the feat mention anything unsafe about the launch. They only applauded the effort, unlike your dimunitive attitude.
Your undermining of the accomplishment and the preparation reflects your “greater than thou” complex and total lack of appreciation of what others succeed at.
A human body though a jet engine without harm? I guess you missed US Airways Flight 1549, a twin engine Airbus A320 that lost both engines after flying into a flock of birds shortly after take-off and ended up landing in the Hudson River. January 15, 2009.
Or how about ThomsonFly 757, April 29, 2007, one bird sucked into an engine on takeoff, lost the engine, had to return and do an emergency landing. It was caught on video and you can watch it on Youtube.
On September 22, 1995, a U.S. Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft (Callsign Yukla 27, serial number 77-0354), crashed shortly after take off from Elmendorf AFB. The plane lost power to both port side engines after these engines ingested several Canada Geese during takeoff. The aircraft crashed about two miles (3 km) from the runway, killing all 24 crew members on board.
Birds sucked into jet engines.,, not good,,, Human body sucked into a jet engine ? ? You’re kidding.
Let’s all argue over this for a few more hours and see where it gets us…
Mojo300, I think you have missed the point here. They are a couple of teens who tried something that we didn’t. What Bob williamson states anyone can get it from google! So you get a grip and realize the point. We all know the News exagerates but thats ok. So pull your head out of Bobs Ass and get a grip!!! Get a life!
Agincourt C.I. Rules!! Great job boys….
Dr. A.
Mathew & Mohammad—I agree with you guys, it was COOL to do. Beats what myself and some my friends used to do 40 years ago (then age 15-17). We thought it was fun tying notes onto or inserting them into balloons with our name and phone numbers and asking people to call us if you had found one of them. We just wanted to track how far they had gotten, unfortunately we never did receive a call. So have fun with it and tell all the morons with the negative responses to go inhale some Helium and try to remember how funny their words would have sounded then!
I don’t think most of you get what Rob is trying to say. He is not tearing down the kids at all! He is tearing down the reporters for giving false accusations about this story. look through the comments.
So, this is a feel good story and the sour pusses come out. What did you do for your high school projects that is news worthy.These kids deserve the plaudits.Go beat your dog or something.