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
How covid impacted private aviation! Parts-1
What do you think Covet did for the private aviation industry? Because I’ll be honest, when that whole thing was going on, that was kind of my first introduction to starting the charter travel. It got very crazy, and even though prices were quite crazy at…
Creating scale drawings | Geometry | 7th grade | Khan Academy
Sue is a software engineer. She wants to create a large-scale drawing of a processor inside a cell phone. The processor is a square chip, nine millimeters on each side. Draw the processor such that one unit on the grid below represents one half of a milli…
The Stock Market is a Ponzi Scheme. Fully explained.
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…
If you want to be more successful you must get over THIS
If you want to elevate yourself and be more successful, you must get over the pride of learning because the pride in knowing. I see this happen all the time. People feel embarrassed if they don’t know, or they feel so attached to having the right answer t…
How to Make a Delicious Meal For Under $10 | Chef Wonderful
Who made this? Oh, I did! Wow, I’m gonna cry. It’s a masterpiece that should get an Emmy, that should get a Tony, all of it. And that still wouldn’t be enough for what that was. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Chef Wonderful here! Let’s talk about suffolak…
More Than a Grand Canyon | America's National Parks | National Geographic
[MUSIC PLAYING] [BIRDS CHIRPING] The Kaibab Plateau is home to one of the last ponderosa pine forests in the southwest. It’s a unique habitat, protected by Grand Canyon National Park, and a spectacle to behold. [MUSIC PLAYING] Less than 5% of the 6 mi…