Dear , This Thursday, June 22nd, at 1pm we hope to launch a Space Balloon from Frank & Mary Clarke's house as part of our Erasmus Space project. The balloon will take about 3 hours to reach the stratosphere and contain a camera to record the journey along with some equipment for measuring altitude, temperature etc. We will be joined by the project teachers from France, Italy, Croatia and Portugal who visited last November. All pupils in the school will witness the launch (weather-permitting) and past-pupils/parents are welcome to attend. The infants will be late home that day but it's something I don't want them to miss. Claremorris Credit Union are very kindly sending an ice-cream van so all we need is fine weather! The balloon will eventually burst in space before safely returning to earth by parachute. Its location will be tracked by GPS and, to retrieve it, we will take the visiting teachers in convoy to wherever it lands which could be some distance away. The bus won't be suitable for this task and I would be grateful if any parent could volunteer to travel with us and take a couple of the visiting teachers along. It would also be great if no more than two or three pupils from 5th/6th could stay on at the school after 2.30pm to act as "mission control" and help track the path/final location of the balloon. On the road we will keep in touch with them for location details whenever 3G becomes patchy. If anyone is working for a company who might like to sponsor part of the costs, such as the helium, please let me know. Their logo could be fixed in front of the balloon camera as it travels to space and feature prominently in the final video. As well as that they will have a physical souvenir of their space logo which we can frame. Many thanks, Pádraig