Reports here and here.  **see the added video below — it shows where the balloons were launched from, and I was right about being subjected to this in South Dakota —

**Yet another video added below outlining how serious this bacteria threat is — it kills honeybees!  So much for no threat to the environment or living things!!

The Verge article sounds like it was written by a high school kid who doesn’t ask hard questions or know enough to question what is being fed—

The bacteria that will fly to the edge of space is a particular strain called Paenibacillus xerothermodurans. It was first isolated from soil outside a spacecraft-assembly facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 1973, says Parag Vaishampayan, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These bacteria form shields of spores that allow them to survive even when conditions turn deadly…