Subtitles section Play video
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This is not going to be a normal video.
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We're sending garlic bread to the edge of space!
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Loads of people have launched loads of objects on balloons,
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usually as publicity stunts.
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But despite a lot of breathless press releases
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those objects haven't been launched into space.
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Most standards organisations agree that space officially starts
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at the completely arbitrary Kármán Line, 100 kilometres up.
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And balloons like that one only get about a third of the way there.
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And we're definitely not sending anything into orbit.
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Orbit requires tens of thousands of miles-an-hour of speed.
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That's what all the rockets are for.
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We're using a weather balloon.
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It's a large one, actually, today.
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We're going as high as we can with this payload.
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It's very cold on the way up.
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It gets warmer as you approach that sort of altitude.
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So it's coldest just above the jet stream
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and then getting slightly warmer again.
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It gets back down to about zero about where the balloon will pop.
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The idea that all those publicity stunts actually made it to space
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is helped by the fact that the fish-eye lens on some of the cameras that they use
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means that the curve of the earth looks a lot more dramatic
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than it really is at that height.
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Now we're using cameras that correct for that,
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so what you'll see on screen is more or less what you'd see up there.
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So we're not saying "space", we're saying "the edge of space".
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Which is basically just a marketing term, but the atmosphere's so thin up there,
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about 1% of the pressure at ground level, that it's close enough.
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Why garlic bread?
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Because it's delicious,
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and because someone already sent pizza up in a balloon a few years ago.
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This garlic bread is delicious.
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It's homemade. Well, apart from the baguette.
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I did some homemade garlic butter on there with some real nice Parmesan on it.
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Although I did make it at 5 o'clock this morning!
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So it's going to be in near-vacuum.
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It's going to be possibly frozen. I mean...
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We're going to send half up in the sky with the balloon
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and then leave half on earth for a real comparison taste test.
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As it goes up, the atmosphere is getting thinner and thinner
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and there's less and less air pushing in.
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The balloon itself will get bigger and bigger.
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So eventually the balloon will pop
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and the equipment will parachute down to the ground
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and we'll go and recover it.
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We normally predict the landing spot to within about five miles
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when we launch the balloon.
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We're tracking the balloon using some radio trackers.
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They send a signal with a GPS position to the ground
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and that's put on a map and we chase the balloon's predicted landing spot.
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I've done lots of high-altitude ballooning.
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I've been doing it now for about 10 years.
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Never lost one. Sent one to its doom a couple of times.
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All sorts of food items have been launched into the stratosphere.
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The BBC sent wedding cake up as part of a children's show
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but the punchline at the end was that no one actually ate it.
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I've yet to find any balloon-launched food that was actually eaten after landing.
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And the main reason for that is you have no idea
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where it's going to land, what it's going land in,
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or what animals will have got to it first.
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The box I've designed has a GPS and a little servo,
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and a piece of string and some springs.
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As it comes down it closes the servo 1000 metres above the ground.
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So now we have to get in our cars and go chasing the payload.
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It's just coming in to land somewhere about half a mile ahead
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so, Barry, keep your eyes on the sky.
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I've got to keep my eyes on the road.
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You reckon we're okay to park here?
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Let's go.
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It's just on the end of that row there.
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Let's do it.
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Oh dear! - I think this is the way.
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Well, at least we've got two cameras, I suppose.
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Yay, I think they're still running.
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- Oh,there we go. - Lift it up, oh.
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- Oh, yes! - Yeah.
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Alright so this is your original?
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Yeah, yeah.
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That's really good.
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Not bad, right?
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Space bread...
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Is it cold?
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It's not that much... oh!
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No, that tore completely differently.
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So that one ripped; that one went [tearing sound].
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This one went click.
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It's definitely got an icy middle.
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Oh wow.
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I don't know. I mean... - That has been frozen.
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That's been frozen in the stratosphere.
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You can sorta see the colour of the middle of them.
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It's whiter, isn't it?
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This went to the stratosphere and I'm eating it!
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Sort of.
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Thank you very much to Steve Randall from Random Aerospace
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and to Barry Lewis from My Virgin Kitchen.
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I don't actually know what I did on this.
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I'm basically DJ Khaled at this point.
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Yeah! Yeah.
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DJ Garl-ed? No, it didn't work.
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I was gonna say garlic bread.
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We're done, we're good.
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Thank you, folks!