Mr. Geissbühler achieved the "impossible" in the article from the New York Times below. Can you describe a time when you solved an "impossible problem" and the process you used to solve it?  |
| Luke Geissbühler |
In a Takeout Container, a Trek to the Stratosphere
A 100,000-FOOT VOYAGE
Luke Geissbuhler tethered a video camera to a weather balloon and launched it in August from Newburgh, N.Y. The trip took 90 minutes, and a seven-minute video became a viral success.
By SAM GROBART
Published: October 12, 2010, The New York Times
Luke Geissbühler has raised the bar in the cool-dad competition.
In August, Mr. Geissbühler, a 40-year-old director and cinematographer, tethered a video camera to a weather balloon and sent both more than 100,000 feet into the stratosphere. The camera safely returned to the ground with the help of a small parachute.
The entire trip took about 90 minutes, but a seven-minute account of the voyage, posted on the video-sharing site Vimeo, has become a viral success, garnering more than one million views since it was first uploaded on Sept. 19. The breathtaking video, with its NASA-like views of the Earth’s curves, has made Mr. Geissbühler the latest in a long line of scrappy, do-it-yourself geek heroes. (It can be seen at www.brooklynspaceprogram.org/BSP/Space_Balloon.html.)
The instigator for this particular space program was Mr. Geissbühler’s 7-year-old son, Max, who had made more than a few requests for a handmade spacecraft.
“Our creative process works this way: he asks for the impossible,” Mr. Geissbühler said, “and then I have to tell him why it’s impossible. And then I start to question that. And then I start to investigate that.”
