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Middle and high school students of the Earth to Sky Calculus club project in Bishop, Calif., launched a bobblehead toy of President Barack Obama into the stratosphere on Nov. 5, 2012, one day before Election Day, using a high-altitude balloon that reached 120,000 feet.
The U.S. presidential campaign was a political rollercoaster ride for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but it couldn't compare to the ride their bobblehead dolls took earlier this week.
On Monday (Nov. 5) — the day before President Obama defeated Romney to win a second term in the White House — a group of California schoolkids launched bobbleheads of the two candidates to the stratosphere aboard a high-altitude balloon.
Middle and high school students in the Earth to Sky Calculus club launched a bobblehead of Mitt Romney into the stratosphere on Nov. 5, 2012 (one day before Election Day) using a weather balloon.
(Image credit: Earth to Sky Calculus Club)
"We estimate that the balloon reached 120,000 [feet]," Earth to Sky Calculus, a group of middle- and high-schoolers from Bishop, Calif., wrote on Facebook Wednesday. "It was a crystal clear, gorgeous fall day in the western United States!"
Onboard cameras documented the flight, recording the dolls' rise into the skies over east-central California and their dizzying descent after the balloon popped high above the Earth.
One video of the Obama and Romney dolls' flight, in fact, captures the transition from serenity to chaos after the balloon pops. The Obama doll's head is peacefully surveying the desert-mountain landscape one moment and bobbling furiously the next.
Earth to Sky Calculus eventually tracked down the fallen balloon and recovered its payload, group members said on Facebook.
Monday's launch wasn't the first balloon flight for some of the Bishop schoolkids. They also lofted a balloon in early September, as part of a project called The Golden iPod.
The students of the Earth to Sky project sent a bobblehead doll of President Obama flying on a weather balloon over Owens Valley, CA, on Nov. 5, 2012, in honor of Election Day.
(Image credit: Earth to Sky Calculus Club)
The Golden iPod is a nod to the Golden Records aboard NASA's Voyager spacecraft, which launched in 1977 and are now nearing the edge of interstellar space. The records are meant to provide any aliens who may come across them an introduction to our species and our planet; they contain selections of some of our most celebrated music, greetings in 55 different human languages and much more.
The Golden iPod project aims to fill a 16-gigabyte mp3 player with more indicators and accomplishments of human culture, then launch it to Earth orbit in 2013.
"We plan to fill our iPod with the best humanity has to offer — old and new," team member Anna Herbst said in a statement. "Then, if all goes as planned, we're going to send it to space."
Before it leaves the planet, the Golden iPod will visit the stratosphere during a series of high-altitude balloon flights, team members said. The first flight took place Sept. 5.
Michael was a science writer for the Idaho National Laboratory and has been an intern at Wired.com, The Salinas Californian newspaper, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. He has also worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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