the stratospheric balloon taking red
bull stratos to the skies is extremely
thin extremely delicate yet once
airborne incredibly strong and reliable
made of high-performance polyethylene
the balloon is essentially the engine
for the capsule very expensive very hard
to get very hard to talk people even
into selling you balloons of this type a
three million cubic foot balloon took
Joe Kittinger to 102 thousand feet in
1960 a 30 million cubic foot balloon
will take Felix Baumgartner 17,000 feet
further 10 times bigger for that
difference in altitude it's extreme and
the Gore's holding the balloon together
must carry a payload of almost 3000
pounds
uninflated the balloon for the final
launch will stretch nearly 600 feet long
and will weigh a bit more than 3,700
pounds stratospheric balloons are
extremely fragile
on the ground once they get airborne
they could take a pretty good beating
but on the ground they're very
vulnerable you can imagine what it takes
to poke a hole through a drycleaner bang
it's what it takes to poke a hole in our
balloon no doubt the team has to be
careful each balloon can only be used
once it takes patience be a person that
flies balloon because it has to wait for
the right for the conditions it's not
only dangerous it's also very busy
because if you destroy the balloon and
the helium you've lost a large
investment the launch is probably the
most critical phase and when we have a
human on board that's like super
critical a dynamic launch timing or
awkward positioning of the capsule can
cause a pendulum effect that could bring
the vessel to the ground endangering the
mission or worse as you're launching up
the balloon there's a dead man's own if
there's a failure in the launch where
the balloon fails the parachute doesn't
have time to really open you have a
instant failure right there in the
ground as the balloon descends towards
the trophy sphere the flight train
stretches roughly 750 feet long
at the target height of 120,000 feet the
balloon will transform into a sphere
roughly 300 feet high and 400 feet in
diameter since the mass of balloon is
filled with low-density gas helium it is
amazingly lighter than air and because
there is less and less air at higher
altitudes gravity will kick in the
balloon will reach what is known as
float altitude and go no further
at this point Felix will exit the
capsule and begin his freefall once
Felix is safely on the ground a balloon
is cut away 3 2
really
a recovery crew is sent to a point
calculated by the team's meteorologist
the preparations have taken years yet in
the span of just a few hours the mighty
balloon will help the red bull stratos
program reach incredible new heights
with the beauty of balloons we were able
to climb above the earth maybe something
that's totally unforeseen emerges from
this and becomes an inspiration for
further technology advances
Why did the narrator call the balloon an engine to the capsule? Explain your answer. written as a 8th grader