The mission: to boldly go where no cockroach had gone before. And the mission was accomplished by a group of UC San Diego freshmen engineering students when they sent a weather balloon soaring up to 85,000 feet above the Salton Sea. The cockroaches were placed in a variety of small bottles that were first tested to ensure the cockroaches would survive the cold and near vacuum without bursting. The experiment came off without a hitch–all the cockroaches survived the cold (-40 F),
low air pressure and radiation.
The ride was part of an experiment for an Introduction to Aerospace Engineering class taught by John Kosmatka, a professor in the Department of Structural Engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering. It was the first time a UCSD weather balloon launch included other payloads and experiments, such as a digital camera to take images from space
and temperature monitoring tools for future investigation of weather patterns and air pollution control.
The data collected from the experiment will be used for
future weather balloon launches and the students are thinking about creating a UCSD weather balloon club. 
Contributors to Making Waves: Jesse Alm '11, Tiffany Fox, Raymond Hardie, Daniel Kane, Andrea Siedsma |
