The Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope, or BLAST, was a submillimeter telescope whose goal was to do a wide submillimeter survey of the sky. What makes BLAST different from most telescopes is that it was carried by a huge balloon. It made two flights, one in the Arctic (launched from Sweden and picked up in Canada) and another in Antarctica.

There’s a movie about BLAST called BLAST! The Movie. Here’s its trailer:

A friend of mine, Ed Chapin, worked on BLAST. I didn’t see him anywhere in the trailers, but here’s a picture of him in Antarctica. I see from Gaelen Marsden’s blog that Ed showed up nearer the end, probably to be all rock star and grab all the glory for himself.