Berwick 8th Grader Builds Balloon, Ascends to Astronomical Heights

What happens when you have two Go Pro cameras, a homemade weather balloon, and your school's mascot? If you are 14-year-old Ben Slama from Berwick Academy, you get stunning images of the Northeast Seacoast.

Slama went to astronomical heights after he sought out FAA permission to send his weather balloon up into the air. It traveled from Sandwich Fairgrounds all the way to Kennebunkport, Maine and captured photos of the New Hampshire terrain and Maine Seacoast at an altitude of 95,000 feet.

That's 1/3 of the journey into space.

What were you doing at 14? I think I was only concerned with the next music video to play on MTV, certainly not engineering my own video images from nearly 100 thousand feet in space. Check out these great views from Ben's high-flying Bulldog.