$150 is all it takes to launch your own camera 17.5 miles high into the uppermost parts of the stratosphere. That’s pretty damn close to space. Who woulda thunk it? Two M.I.T students Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh that’s who (which means they’re the photographer of the image above)… Figures they’d be the ones to figure out a way to make it so. At least you can’t feel dumb that you didn’t beat them to it. All of their supplies (including camera, GPS tracking, weather balloon, and helium) were purchased for less than a grand total of $150. They basically rigged up a camera to take photos every could of seconds to a weather balloon and let it fly. How they found the camera after the balloon popped is pretty awesome too, they bought a GPS-enabled prepaid cell phone. This sounds totally doable. True, launching things into the stratosphere can be dangerous, I’m sure the FAA might have a thing or two to say about it, but isn’t it better to ask for forgiveness than permission.  I’m half off my chair right now ready to go do this shit. They even made a crude time-lapse video from all the images they took. You can read more about the project here.