To space and back at Rs 86,000

Want to be a space tourist, but don't have the money? Well, help may be at hand.

A group of undergraduate researchers from the University of Cambridge have successfully tested their Project Nova, which could allow small payloads to be sent into space for as little as £1000 (approx. Rs 86,000).

This week, the team launched a two-metre-wide helium balloon from the university campus and by the time it landed, three hours later and some 45 kilometres away, it had soared to more than 32,000 metres, four times the height of Everest, and recorded stunning images of Earth before the balloon burst and the cameras and other instruments were guided towards Earth by a parachute.

Carl Morland, Henry Hallam and Robert Fryers, the three students spearheading the project now plan to attach a rocket to the balloon so that it can fire the balloon to its maximum height of 100 kilometres - the officially recognised boundary of space.

"There are a series of further balloon tests planned for the coming months, culminating with a trial of the rocket technology in summer 2007. The reliability will not be 100 percent. But, at least the equipment will be recoverable," Nature journal quoted Hallam, who developed the balloon's tracking system, as saying.

The team is now contemplating encouraging local secondary schools and atmospheric scientists to put experiments on future launches, in an effort to measure ozone levels or pressure and temperature changes.

Paul Collins, a Cambridge engineer who advised the team, has opined that the team will find favour as no one else is planning space shots on such a paltry budget.

He has said that for using the balloon to travel the first few dozen kilometres, bypassing the area where gravity is strongest and the air thickest, the team will not have to use as much fuel for their rocket.

The team is now looking for commercial backers to help them make the final push into outer space.