stratosphere

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Michelin-Starred Chef Will Serve a Meal 100K Feet Up

It could include 'an edible piece of space junk'

(Newser) - Ever since humans have journeyed to space, their meals there have proved to be, well, nothing to write home about. But that could change after a Michelin-starred chef teamed up with the Florida-based startup Space Perspective to take fine dining to our upper atmosphere in late 2025, the AP reports....

Very Expensive Balloon Ride Promises Quite a View

Company plans $125K rides into the stratosphere

(Newser) - Still pricey, but this might be the cheapest option for space tourists yet. The company Space Perspective plans to fly people up to the Earth's stratosphere in a giant balloon with a pressurized cabin, reports Space.com . The cost? $125,000 a seat. The trip would take about six...

KFC Says It Is Sending Sandwich to Space

NASA doesn't quite agree

(Newser) - KFC says it plans to make a space pioneer out of a chicken sandwich next week when it sends it to the edge of the atmosphere with the help of a high-altitude balloon. The promotional stunt for the Zinger sandwich comes two months after the fast food chain unveiled Rob...

What the Edge of Space Sounds Like: X-Files

NASA captures first stratosphere recordings in 50 years

(Newser) - Ever wonder what near space sounds like? The mystery is solved thanks to a NASA balloon experiment that captured atmospheric infrasound 22 miles above Earth. Infrasound, at frequencies below 20 hertz, is undetected to the human ear, but becomes audible when sound waves are sped up. Sensors on a helium...

Latest Task for Drones: Study Earth's Ozone Layer

Global Hawk will survey the tropopause

(Newser) - Today's science vocab lesson: tropopause. It's the atmospheric boundary between the troposphere, where ozone exists as a harmful greenhouse gas, and the higher-up stratosphere, where the same gas plays an important role in protecting the Earth from the sun's UV rays. And that boundary region is about...

Wind Derails Hypersonic Skydive From Space

Daredevil postpones 23-mile stunt

(Newser) - A healthy sense of his own mortality couldn't stop Felix Baumgartner from hurling himself from the stratosphere in an experimental spacesuit, but a little wind could. Baumgartner was planning to take a record-setting 23-mile dive today that would have given scientists their first look at the effect breaking the...

Bad Weather Delays Crazy Supersonic Sky-Dive

Felix Baumgartner plans to make leap on Tuesday

(Newser) - Felix Baumgartner has already sky-dived from 13 miles up and 18 miles up —so what's a leap of 23 miles that shatters the sound barrier? Well, it at least requires good weather, so the record-breaking dive has been bumped from Monday to Tuesday to avoid strong winds and...

Space Tourism May Warm Planet

Rockets send soot into stratosphere

(Newser) - Space tourism may sound, well, out-of-this-world, but there is a good chance it will pollute this world, possibly contributing to global warming. As firms like Boeing prepare to launch space tourism businesses , a new study warns that the soot emitted by commercial rockets may get stuck in the stratosphere, notes...

Drier Atmosphere Slows Global Warming

10% less vapor in stratosphere kept temperature increase down in 2000s

(Newser) - A decrease in water vapor in the stratosphere may be the reason global warming hasn't increased as fast as expected over the last 10 years. The planet warmed .18 degree from 2000 to 2009, below the forecast .25 degree. A 10% drop in stratospheric water vapor “very likely made...

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