On 3 November, 2002, James Meehan, launched a home brew, computer controlled balloon. Over the next 24 hours, the vehicle rose to 80,000 feet as it travelled over California. James has written the complete story of the balloon from initial idea, through construction, launch, tracking, and recovery. There are also photo galleries of the launch and recovery as well as data from the onboard, Linux-based computer which collected telemetery and photographs during the flight.