We're sending garlic bread to the edge of space!

Loads of people have launched loads of objects on balloons,

usually as publicity stunts.

But despite a lot of breathless press releases

those objects haven't been launched into space.

Most standards organisations agree that space officially starts

at the completely arbitrary Kármán Line, 100 kilometres up.

And balloons like that one only get about a third of the way there.

And we're definitely not sending anything into orbit.

Orbit requires tens of thousands of miles-an-hour of speed.

That's what all the rockets are for.

We're using a weather balloon.

It's a large one, actually, today.

We're going as high as we can with this payload.

It's very cold on the way up.

It gets warmer as you approach that sort of altitude.

So it's coldest just above the jet stream

and then getting slightly warmer again.

It gets back down to about zero about where the balloon will pop.

The idea that all those publicity stunts actually made it to space

is helped by the fact that the fish-eye lens on some of the cameras that they use

means that the curve of the earth looks a lot more dramatic

than it really is at that height.

Now we're using cameras that correct for that,

so what you'll see on screen is more or less what you'd see up there.

So we're not saying "space", we're saying "the edge of space".

Which is basically just a marketing term, but the atmosphere's so thin up there,

about 1% of the pressure at ground level, that it's close enough.

Why garlic bread?

Because it's delicious,

and because someone already sent pizza up in a balloon a few years ago.

This garlic bread is delicious.

It's homemade. Well, apart from the baguette.

I did some homemade garlic butter on there with some real nice Parmesan on it.

Although I did make it at 5 o'clock this morning!

So it's going to be in near-vacuum.

It's going to be possibly frozen. I mean...

We're going to send half up in the sky with the balloon

and then leave half on earth for a real comparison taste test.

As it goes up, the atmosphere is getting thinner and thinner

and there's less and less air pushing in.

The balloon itself will get bigger and bigger.

So eventually the balloon will pop

and the equipment will parachute down to the ground

and we'll go and recover it.

We normally predict the landing spot to within about five miles

when we launch the balloon.

We're tracking the balloon using some radio trackers.

They send a signal with a GPS position to the ground

and that's put on a map and we chase the balloon's predicted landing spot.

I've done lots of high-altitude ballooning.

I've been doing it now for about 10 years.

Never lost one. Sent one to its doom a couple of times.

All sorts of food items have been launched into the stratosphere.

The BBC sent wedding cake up as part of a children's show

but the punchline at the end was that no one actually ate it.

I've yet to find any balloon-launched food that was actually eaten after landing.

And the main reason for that is you have no idea

where it's going to land, what it's going land in,

or what animals will have got to it first.

The box I've designed has a GPS and a little servo,

and a piece of string and some springs.

As it comes down it closes the servo 1000 metres above the ground.

So now we have to get in our cars and go chasing the payload.

It's just coming in to land somewhere about half a mile ahead

so, Barry, keep your eyes on the sky.

I've got to keep my eyes on the road.

You reckon we're okay to park here?

Let's go.

It's just on the end of that row there.

Let's do it.

Oh dear! - I think this is the way.

Well, at least we've got two cameras, I suppose.

Yay, I think they're still running.

- Oh,there we go. - Lift it up, oh.

- Oh, yes! - Yeah.

Alright so this is your original?

Yeah, yeah.

That's really good.

Not bad, right?

Space bread...

Is it cold?

It's not that much... oh!

No, that tore completely differently.

So that one ripped; that one went [tearing sound].

This one went click.

It's definitely got an icy middle.

Oh wow.

I don't know. I mean... - That has been frozen.

That's been frozen in the stratosphere.

You can sorta see the colour of the middle of them.

It's whiter, isn't it?

This went to the stratosphere and I'm eating it!

Sort of.

Thank you very much to Steve Randall from Random Aerospace

and to Barry Lewis from My Virgin Kitchen.

I don't actually know what I did on this.

I'm basically DJ Khaled at this point.

Yeah! Yeah.

DJ Garl-ed? No, it didn't work.

I was gonna say garlic bread.

We're done, we're good.

Thank you, folks!