National Geographic Team Lift a House Using Balloons

The team from National Geographic decided to lift a house using helium balloons (the idea probably came after watching the famous Pixar animated movie "Up"). The team included scientists, engineers and balloon pilots.

The experiment was filmed for a new television series entitled "How Hard Can It Be?"

Planning, building and launching processes required about 2 weeks. In order to lift a house weighting 2,000 pounds and measuring 16x16 feet, the team used 300 weather balloons. Each balloon was inflated to a height of 8 feet.

The lifting took place outside Los Angeles. During the experiment the house floated for about an hour and managed to reach a height of 10,000 feet.

The National Geographic Channel stated that its floating house set a world record for the "largest balloon cluster flight" ever attempted.

The TV series of "How Hard Can It Be?" are expected to be launched next fall.