i think this is such a fun and cool story. he called it SABLE, for south alberta balloon lauch experiment. his goal was to get a good photo of earth from space, and recapture the camera. the whole thing was beautifully lo-tech. no wireless transmitting of photos. just a balloon lifting a box with a couple items in it — a camera (just a nikon coolpix — a cheap digital camera) set to take one photo each minute and a tracking device so they could tell where the balloon and box were coming down after the balloon popped.

third time’s a charm, they say.

tony got this final shot, before the balloon broke, at 117,597 feet!

really, you need to click through and read the whole story and look at the pictures, to get a sense of how cool this is. i love the gallery of photos taken from the trip, like this one taken just a couple minutes prior to landing, at 3200 ft.