The egg is fragile and can break easily if dropped. But have you heard of an egg that when released from a height does not break?
YouTuber and former NASA scientist Mark Rober often shares experimental science videos on his channel. One of his videos recently went viral in which he drops an egg from space without breaking it.
His original idea was to drop an egg from the tallest building in the world, Burj Khalifa. But he scrapped the plan, saying: “Humans are always building taller buildings, and so if I really wanted to test this disk, I realized I would have to go all the way to the top and straight into outer space.”
Later he went and said that he started this journey three years ago. He also said he had no idea this would be the most physically, financially and mentally draining video he would ever attempt.
Explaining his initial plan, he said: “The plan was to attach an egg to the front of a rocket, then attach that rocket to a weather balloon and take it into space. Once there, the weather balloon l ‘release and using only gravity, the rocket would accelerate past Mach 1 breaking the speed of sound and then autonomously adjust the four fins on the back to head to the target location and then 300 feet. above the floor, it would release the egg which would fall freely onto a mattress we placed on the floor.”
While doing the test, it failed and the eggs ended up breaking. Then he got advice from his friend Adam Stelzner, who is a Caltech PhD and also the lead engineer for the Mars sample return and persistence. Stelzner immediately spotted a fatal flaw in the experiment.
After understanding the changes, Rober completely scrapped the old design and spent a couple of months designing and building a new system that borrowed heavily from the Curiosity Landing.
Explaining the new plan, he said: “We’ll still be going into space in a weather balloon, but this time, but this time the rocket would have fins that wouldn’t move and would be three times longer and four times heavier to ensure we got the egg at supersonic speeds on the way.
He further explained, “Just as NASA separates the crew stage in the upper atmosphere and then uses the boom’s braking to dissipate a lot of energy and velocity, we would separate from the back half of the rocket about halfway after we had already broken the sound barrier and since it now weighs much less, it would naturally break the bug and slow down to the new lower terminal velocity.”
The landing that was previously decided on the mattress was later decided on dessert and was also successfully carried out.
The video, which was shared on November 25, is currently trending on YouTube. It has achieved 18 million views. The video also received applause from the people. One user wrote: “I literally gasped when I saw the zero pressure balloon pop prematurely. Seeing engineering fail and succeed at the same time is refreshing. I work hard to teach my kids that failure is not the goal , but it’s not bad. Just part of the process.” Another user commented: “Photographs of the earth from space never cease to fill me with wonder.”
Another wrote: “I can say this video deserves a like, the amount of thought, expense and work these guys put into each video is just something else! Hats off mate.”
Another user commented: “This guy does a lot and doesn’t get enough credit. Keep up the good work. I know that’s what everyone says but you are truly an inspiration to so many people. I’ve been watching your videos for over 3 years!” Another commented: “I love that they stick to the mistakes and not just make it look like it’s perfect and easy.”
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