yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Flight at the Edge of the Ozone Layer | One Strange Rock


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

NARRATOR: 30 years ago, we discovered man-made chemicals had punched a hole in the ozone layer. Is that hole here to stay, waiting around to kill us? Today, we're trying hard to find out. Morgan Sandercock is about to test an experimental plane, perfect for sampling ozone.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Copy that. So I felt pressure rising.

MORGAN SANDERCOCK: (VOICEOVER) We think we can go as high as 90,000 feet.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Jim, you ready to go?

JIM PAYNE: (ON RADIO) We're ready.

MORGAN SANDERCOCK: (VOICEOVER) That's the big boy territory. That's where things can go wrong very, very quickly. If we lose cabin pressure, then, the pilots could very easily pass out. And we don't have any automatic systems to recover from that.

WOMAN: (ON RADIO) Getting ready to roll.

NARRATOR: Now, a glider might sound like a dangerous choice so high up. But gliders don't have engines, which means they can't pollute the team's samples.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Confirm [inaudible] off.

WOMAN: (ON RADIO) [inaudible] is off. Wing wheel is off.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Been running at 11:32.

MAN: (ON RADIO) 11:32. Written down in GPS 5.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Airborne. [music playing]

NARRATOR: The Perlan glider uses air rising over the Southern Andes to reach extraordinary heights.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Airspeed, 70 knots. Looking beautiful.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Yeah?

MAN: (ON RADIO) Really high.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Traffic.

MAN: (ON RADIO) Yeah.

NARRATOR: 52,000 feet up makes this the highest glider flight ever. But you've got to get this high to get a great picture of the ozone layer. The good news is that thanks to a global ban on ozone-harming chemicals, it looks like the hole is healing up. Our shield is regenerating.

More Articles

View All
What’s It Like to Photograph the Pope? | Exposure
I’ve never had an assignment that was so frightening in that I had no idea what I was going to shoot. The biggest challenge to photographing the Vatican that I found was simply getting in there. It’s like a gigantic curtain. Just to get behind this curtai…
Formula 1 Driver's INSANE Watch | First Time Reviewing H.Moser & Cie
This is craftsmanship. This is what we love in Swiss traditional watchmaking. What a dial! It just explodes! Smoky hot, it’s beautiful. Good [Music]. Question: this is wonderful. Here with a story of a rather unique brand, it’s H. Moser, but everybody ju…
How To Use The Buy Borrow Die Strategy To Build Wealth And Pay ZERO Taxes
Hey guys, Toby Mathis here. And today we’re going to go over the buy borrow die strategy for building wealth and paying zero taxes. Also, we will do it as a how-to in three steps. It’s actually pretty straightforward. And then I’ll give you some examples …
The Big Misconception About Electricity
This video was sponsored by Caséta by Lutron. Imagine you have a giant circuit consisting of a battery, a switch, a light bulb, and two wires, which are each 300,000 kilometers long. That is the distance light travels in one second. So, they would reach o…
Equilibrium nominal interest rates in the money market | AP Macroeconomics | Khan Academy
So we’ve spent a lot of time justifying why we have this downward sloping demand curve for money, but you’re probably asking, “Well, this is a market. What we need to think about an equilibrium point?” And to do that, we need to think about the supply of …
Why Snatch Blocks are AWESOME (How Pulleys Work) - Smarter Every Day 228
Hey, it’s me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. It’s time for the pulley episode. These are like my favorite things in the whole world. I bought this one; it looks like it goes to a boat or something like that. Pulleys are one of these things tha…