Long Duration Balloon

This morning, from the front door of Building 140,
we watched a 300 foot tall Long Duration Balloon
rise into the sky and start to drift lazily
upward. It's part of the Cosmic Ray Energetics
and Mass (CREAM) experiment and was "designed
to measure cosmic ray elemental spectra using
a series of ultra long duration balloon (ULDB)
flights". It will eventually rise to almost
25 miles into the sky. I haven't seen one
of these take off before and although I wasn't out
at the launch site, it was still fun to see such
a large object rising above our terrain.