is it that hard to just mount a compressor, and compress helium instead of tossing it???? stupid people

I second Daniel!

Daniel - how heavy will the pump be? What will power it? These are all massive considerations.
How much is the cost going to increase to? You may think these are \"stupid people\" but that comment just makes me think you have no idea about the practicalities and costs of making this sort of travel possible.

A quiet ride up sounds great and relaxing, then the ride down sounds like a thrill ride. I\'d like a way down that is equally relaxing- could that be another option?

If they\'re going to jettison the lifting gas, it seems hydrogen might be a better*/cheaper choice. Specially since they have a parachute in the unlikely event something happened to ignite the hydrogen. * better lifting capability and could be generated on site.

As far as the helium I\'ve read articles lately stating helium is not as plentiful as the public believes and that the costs of helium will escalate dramatically over the next decade.
So I\'d say the costs of the compressor system wouldn\'t be that huge compared to not having to buy helium every flight. As far as the weight of the system there are new compressors that could weigh as little as a passenger and still compress the gas at a reasonable speed. This would also address the Carlos\' concern as it could provide a leisurely decent.

Australian - you have completely missed the point. Good job.

No emissions, no noise, beautiful nature, and mother earth...bliss...jettison on massive piece of garbage and then sail away. Hmmmm, my deeply buried inner hippie has problems with this plan. Capture or recover the balloon in some fashion or this is a bad idea in my book.

helium is far too valuable a resource to be venting into the atmosphere, or wasting on birthday balloons, but like everything else in this world, nobody will care until it\'s too late. People just think we\'ll magically invent the tech to produce helium, or the tech to not use helium...

Sounds like a sweet ride though, and if the price were right, I\'d probably go up into near space before saving the helium so my children could have access to MRI machines...

I have to agree with the majority... I was already dreaming of the flight until it got into all of the jettisoning. Virtual is also right - we\'re simply running out of easily obtainable helium. There\'s a weird U.S. law that\'s requiring the government to divest its reserves which is artificially keeping the price low, but when that runs out the price will dramatically rise and we\'re doing things with it like kids\' party balloons - or this - when it\'s needed for serious scientific work. I can\'t believe the people behind this aren\'t taking this issue into account. Even U.S. comedians are aware of the problem:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/393273/july-27-2011/helium-runs-out


Ok, when I got to the part about the $158,000 price tag I was even more disappointed than with the jettisoning. :-)