Weather balloons are disposable, they rise and expand in the process until they burst - the maximum size is somewhere between 5 and 10 meters, between a large car and a white van. The payload tends to have a parachute and a phone number (the ones from the Weather Service do).

There was something about fear being the mind-killer. Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam to the Red Telephone please - paging the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam!