Source: USA Today

The launch of a giant space balloon goes horribly wrong in Australia. (link to video)

The launch of a giant space balloon went badly wrong Thursday in the Australian Outback when it and its heavy payload of scientific equipment broke from a mooring and dragged across the desert, overturning an SUV and narrowly missing bystanders. One witness said she felt lucky to be alive after the car-sized, unmanned gondola hanging beneath the balloon careened out of control into the vehicle parked next to hers at the launch site near Alice Springs in central Australia.

The balloon was part of a research project by academics and students at the University of California, Berkeley, and several Taiwanese universities designed to study gamma rays in space from 25 miles above the Earth.

As the huge balloon filled with air, it ripped from its mooring and dragged across the desert, crashing into and upturning a parked four-wheel-drive vehicle and strewing debris across a wide area before coming to a halt.

No one was injured in the accident, which was captured on video by an Australian Broadcasting Corp. television film crew.

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