Early 2015

It was in a greek restaurant, next to a marina, in the town of Vlissingen (The Netherlands) that one brother told the other brother, and his father, and whomever listened at that very moment about his idea; his idea to release a balloon, to see it rise high into the stratosphere, almost to the edge of space, where it would explode and whatever it would have carried with it would drop back down to earth for him and whomever wanted to join him to retrieve.

“you had me at idea..” replied the brother. (or he thought it at least)

Science has always been a thing in our family. The hunger for knowledge and the amazement that accompanies learning how things work are shared by almost all of us. But these days we all live our lives and sometimes we forget about these things; we don’t seem the have the time to keep pursuing this wonderful amazement.

The younger brother Martin had already realized that we could form a great team for a project like this. He himself is an industrial programmer, the older brother a freelance photographer and webdesigner, and with more than enough people with skills, resources or plain enthusiasm amongst our family and friends we should be more than able  to make this project a success. With the blessing of the people surrounding him and more important their pledge to help him in every way they could he started off on his expedition.

But this expedition leader is not the type to ‘just wing it’. “This will be a meticulously planned project, from beginning to end. I want to do it right and I want to learn everything I can.”, “as long as it is documented in a beautiful and rich way I’m all for it!” I replied and so we began.

Eric Moreau

Aurora Chief Information Officer