How Amazing is it That In 2014 We Now Know What It Looks Like When a Lamb Chop Gets Blasted Into Outer Space?

 

Independent - When a marketing team strapped a GoPro onto a tandoori lamb chop and launched it into space, they did not expect the hunk of meat to disappear for five months, only to return carrying reams of stunning footage showing its ascent into space. Before daybreak on 14 June this summer, novelist Nikesh Shukla and his two friends inflated a 2-metre wide weather balloon and attached the kitted-up tandoori chop, and launched it 31km into the stratosphere. The balloon rose at 325 metres per minute for 95 minutes before bursting somewhere over Hungerford, West Berkshire. GPS contact was lost shortly afterwards. The team had hoped that the GPS would re-connect, but the freezing temperatures of near space scrambled the device and it did not survive the flight. Shukla, who was using the stunt to promote his novel Meatspace, and his friends feared they would never retrieve the lamb chop or the footage from the GoPro. But a month later, a farm worker who only identified himself as Adam contacted flight organiser Nick Hearne after he discovered the chop and the camera as he harvested land in Manston, Dorset – some 82 miles form the launch site. However, the group’s hopes were once again dashed when Adam arranged to meet them at locations in Dorchester, Bridgend and Weston-super-mare – but stood them up every time, using different phone numbers and excuses each time. With help from the Avon and Somerset Police, Adam got back into contact with the group in early November and organised a meeting with a different farm worker, whom he called Will. The group were stunned to find the 100 minutes of footage which the GoPro had filmed, showing the lamb chop make its ascent through the clouds above Earth.
 

Pretty fucking amazing if you ask me. This is the epitome of modern technology. It’s simply unbelievable how far we have come as a society. Think about it this way- If you tell your grandmother at the Thanksgiving table that they just launched tandoori lamb chop into outer space and they have video of it, what would she say? Would she even be able to comprehend it? Or would she just say something about illegal immigration and give you a hot Ferguson take? Probably the latter two. Think about how far technology has evolved (apologies to Curt Schilling). We are at a place in time where we are sending lamb chops into outer space. How is this possible? And how fucking cocky are we? Meanwhile Starvin Marvin over in Africa is eating sand for dinner, and we are launching food into space for YouTube videos. Fucking insane.