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.

Dr. David Anderson on supporting children's mental health during a crisis | Homeroom with Sal

Helping Landlords Find Tenants – Sean Mitchell of Rezi

View All

Partial derivatives of vector fields, component by component

Let’s continue thinking about partial derivatives of vector fields. This is one of those things that’s pretty good practice for some important concepts coming up in multivariable calculus, and it’s also just good to sit down and take a complicated thing a…

Touch - Mind Field (Ep 6)

- When it comes to illusions, optical illusions get all the attention. But the whole body you have can be fooled and can fool the brain. One of my favorite physical illusions is the thermal grill illusion. And you can do it right at home. I have some hot…

On having expectations

Uh, I try not to have expectations of what I’m doing next or where things are going to go because then you close yourself off to the opportunities that the universe is constantly dropping all around you. It’s just, you have to go pick them up, and you ha…

A Dip in the Frozen Drink | Continent 7: Antarctica

Red diver, uh– take a look at your green. Make sure that’s not caught. Understand red. NARRATOR: 20 feet underwater, Coast Guard divers are trying to check the props and rudder for damage. Hey, red, turn to your left. NARRATOR: But one of them is caugh…

Should Warren Buffett Buy Tesla Stock?

[Music] Uh no, I think electric cars are very much in America’s future. Well Warren, if you think that, would you consider potentially buying some Tesla stock? No, there has been a lot of speculation recently that Warren Buffett is in fact investing in…

Price discrimination for a monopoly | Microeconomics | Khan Academy

Let’s say that you own the only hotel that is in a city. For a wide variety of reasons, maybe all of the city council members are your friends or whatever else, no one else can build a hotel in the city. So there are insurmountable barriers to entry. In t…

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

More Articles