Material World - 05/02/2009

Quentin Cooper hears from two brothers about ambitious balloon flights carrying a special telescope above the Arctic and Antarctic, and attempts to film the flights. Mark Devlin, an astronomer at the University of Pennsylvania, aims to study new stars in distant galaxies. He needs to look at them in wavelengths of light that do not penetrate the Earth's atmosphere, so he attempts to fly his fragile telescope beneath a high-altitude balloon which takes it to the top of the atmosphere. To keep it in the sky requires constant daylight, so he has to take it above the Arctic or Antarctic circle in mid-summer. Mark's brother, Paul, is an Emmy award-winning film-maker and has been making a documentary that follows Paul's team. He captures the trials and tribulations, delays and panics, disappointments and triumphs of attempted launches from Sweden and Antarctica.