As man, once again, attempts to further explore the “world” around “our” world, two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently launched their own version of a space mission, using a couple of off-the-shelf tools, a GPS-enabled mobile phone, and a Canon camera – all totaling only a mere $148 – to take snapshots of the Earth’s contour.

“Project Icarus”, which gave birth to the “X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS)”, was made out of a helium-filled weather balloon attached to a styrofoam beer cooler, which carried a Canon A470 digital camera.  “Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work… of course, all this would be pointless if the guys couldn’t find the rig when it landed, so they dropped a prepaid GPS-equipped cellphone inside the box for tracking,” according to a report from wired.com’s “Gadget Lab”.

The launch was made on September 2, 2009 by Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh at Sturbridge, MA, according to iReport.com.  The five-hour flight “peaked at an altitude of 18 miles before returning to Earth where both the curvature of the planet as well as the blackness of space were photographed by the camera,” the report said.

The group, through their official website claimed that, although there were other similar launches that have achieved such feat in the past, “they were the only ones who successfully staged a space mission (1) whose launch budget only totaled $150, and (2) whose launch vehicle was created without the use of any electronic hacking”.