‘Up’ in real life: Scientists lift house with balloons

As you’ll see in the video after the jump, over the weekend, scientists from NASA’s 32nd balloon division (I’m assuming) recreated the house-lifting scene from Up for National Geographic’s upcoming series “How Hard Can It Be?”  The team used 300 helium-filled balloons to lift a 16-foot-by-16-foot house 10,000 feet, only they didn’t get it exactly right because IT DIDN’T EVEN MAKE ME CRY THIS TIME SUCK IT SCIENCE.

How Hard Can It Be? sent Scientists, engineers and pilots from Southern California into the Mojave Desert to try to recreate Carl Fredricksen’s flying house from the Pixar computer animated movie Up. [/Film]

Scientists, engineers, AND pilots?  Hey, how about next time you send a helium tank, some balloons, and this kid:

Hmmm, house still not floating?  This is indeed a mystery… (*puts on reading glasses, studies chart, heats bunsen burner, pours green liquid into graduated cylinder, frowns, smashes beaker on the floor, goes home, tears out hair, questions talent, hears wife say something inconsequential, asks wife to repeat it, shouts “that’s it!”, rushes back to lab, fills another graduated cylinder, shouts “I KNEW IT!”*)  According to my calculations, we need to fill more balloons.

Next time they should investigate the secret of schlubby dudes with Jew fros always scoring hot chicks, like from Seth Rogen movies. The outcome would be, let’s say, of personal interest.

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