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
The Ponzi Factor - Short Trailer
When we think about the stock market, we think about money, the finance industry, businesses, and making money from investing in successful businesses. The belief is investing in successful businesses is what leads to investment profits, and there’s a dir…
Michael Burry just sold all his stocks and the reason why is terrifying
So Michael Burry just did something unthinkable in the world of investing: he sold his entire portfolio of stocks. Every single last one! Now, this action is so unconventional that it deserves your attention. As a professional investor working at an inves…
Safari Live - Day 269 | National Geographic
This program features live coverage of an African safari and may include animal kills and carcasses. Viewer discretion is advised. Hello, hello and good afternoon and welcome to the sunset Safari where I’ve got some very exciting news and I will tell you…
Simple Products That Became Big Companies – Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel
A product that doesn’t work with lots of features is infinitely worse than a product with one feature that works. And again, like, let’s play that out. Let’s play that out. Right? Imagine if it’s like they were like, you get health care and you get benef…
How to Improve Your Life in 24 HOURS
[Music] If you’ve ever browsed self-improvement forums like on Reddit, then you’ll often come across some pretty good advice, some pretty questionable stuff—no doubt. But every once in a while, there’s a little nugget of wisdom that sticks with you, and …
Introduction to exponential decay
What we’re going to do in this video is quickly review exponential growth and then use that as our platform to introduce ourselves to exponential decay. So let’s review exponential growth. Let’s say we have something that… and I’ll do this on a table here…