How about putting your own satellites in orbit, launch a stratosphere balloon probe, and analyze galaxies for a cheap price with an easy spectrograph?
This group has done three previous launches from 60,000 up to 75,000 altitude range. With this Spaceblimp 4, they use and bought a big balloon and put a whole tank of helium into it. As you can see in their video it takes 80 seconds for the big blue marble to the point of apogee at 103,000 feet before the balloon pops.
GPS equipment is supposed to shut down over 60,000 feet or over a certain speed. That is why research is required before constructing the instrument package.
