Balloon science combines the best of many worlds.

A ground-based telescope observes great distances but still has to look at the universe through the Earth's atmosphere. A satellite breaks out of the Earth's atmosphere altogether, but putting a scientific payload on a satellite can take many years and is extremely expensive to launch. A balloon travels in the stratosphere, which allows the instrument to see with much less interference than with a ground instrument launched from the earth. The balloon can also be launched at a far more accelerated schedule, and at far lower cost than launching a satellite.

Balloons are Fast:
A conventional balloon flight, lasting up to 40 hours, can be launched in as little as 26 weeks from the time a request is made to the balloon base. A Long Duration balloon flight lasting up to 3 weeks, can be readied with just a one year lead time.

Relative Low Cost:
The most expensive balloon in use costs about $110,000 while the least expensive costs as little as $37,000. The cost of the Helium which fills up the balloon is about $10,000. Even after you add in the cost of using a remote site, the cost of flying a balloon can stand at about $250,000, roughly four times cheaper than even the least expensive instrument on board a satellite.

Balloon Instruments are Recoverable:
An instrument placed on a balloon is recovered approximately 90% of the time after the completion of the flight. This means that the same instrument can not only be used over and over again, but can also be used in different ways, cutting down on cost and time tremendously. (Parts of the MSAM & TopHat payload have flown over 10 times.)

Balloons Offer Ease of Use:
Launching the scientific payload is not dependent on the cost of the payload or how complicated it is. The launch requirements for balloons is relatively straightforward. The payload must be able to withstand the shock when the payload is returned to Earth using a parachute. In addition, Secondly, the instrument's ability to communicate with a standard interface package must be demonstrated. The interface package is the NBSF equipment which communicates with the payload and sends the telemetry data back to the NBSF balloon base.

Balloon Science Offers Many Educational Benefits:
Working on a balloon payload can offer a unique educational experience. It is one of the few areas of scientific experiments where a student can become involved in all aspects of a scientific experiment. Because of the relatively short development time a student can have hands on experience with building the payload, flying it, and analyzing the data that is gathered.