Pulled from the “I Lost My Job Today” files, or “How to destroy millions of dollars worth of NASA equipment in 10 seconds”:
Watch video at:
news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100429/ … ianoutback
A huge NASA balloon loaded with a telescope painstakingly built to scan the sky at wavelengths invisible to the human eye crashed in the Australian outback Thursday, destroying the astronomy experiment and just missing nearby onlookers, according to Australian media reports.
In dramatic video released by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the giant 400-foot (121-meter) balloon is seen just beginning to lift its payload, then the telescope gondola appears to unexpectedly come loose from its carriage. The telescopes crash through a fence and overturn a nearby parked sport utility vehicle before finally stopping.
) ago, the Aussies gotta be getting tired of us dumping stuff on them!
