“I wanted to see if I could do it." – the rationale of 20 year old Mechanical Engineering student, Alex Yovanovic, on beginning a project he hoped would get him photos and video of the earth from the upper stratosphere.
Three trials and almost two years later, he succeeds!
A balloon, GPS tracking device, three GoPros, a parachute and all sorts of calculations helped build the capsules Alex and his friends launched in hopes of getting closer to space.
After the first attempt led to a failure that Alex attributes to lack of calculations and other important aspects, he waited over a year to get a few college courses under his belt to better his chances at success. As a sophomore at Texas Tech, Yovanovic enrolled in Thermodynamics, a class focusing on pressure, temperature, and gas correlations. He credits this course for giving him everything he needed to continue with this project, which he did as he launched a second attempt in January 2015. Unfortunately to much disappointment, launch number two deemed unsuccessful as well.
Knowing that calculations took about a month per trial, and ordering supplies and building the capsules ate up even more of their time, Alex and his accomplices quickly began work again for a third launch in March 2015. In one day, they managed to finish the set-up of their third capsule, launch it, and finally capture some truly captivating images and video footage of the earth from above.
Realizing his success evoked some unbelievable and indescribable feelings. After years of effort, and plenty of trial and error, watching the footage his cameras managed to capture brought even more joy to the group.
In the months to come, Yovanovic never expected his story to explode in the way it did. News interviews, online articles, and lots of social media attention have made him feel like somewhat of a celebrity. That being said, his humility, along with a grateful attitude about the whole thing, is extremely admirable. Alex’s dedication to this project and his love for space shed light on his career goals. With hopes to work in the space industry for companies such as NASA and SpaceX, the recognition of this incredible project should boost his chances of these dreams coming true.
A video following the progression, including the beautiful footage from the “space balloon,” can be found on his Youtube page (link below). The twelve minute video gives off major October Sky vibes (as if we weren’t getting them already) and lets us see the amount of work that went into the project and the undeniable sense of pride after discovering that he had finally done what he set out to do years before. Thanks to Alex, we have an amazing glimpse of what Texas looks like from above.
Space Balloon
