A former NASA engineer who wanted to smash the all-time height record for dropping an egg without breaking it sent the organic vessel into space - and the footage is mind-boggling
Popular YouTuber and CrunchLabs founder Mark Rober boats just shy of 57 million subscribers.
During his collection of science-based videos, the social media star has used his platform to investigate the origins of bed bugs and battled robots with fellow content creators.
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But one of his finest moments on the platform came in November 2022 when he uploaded a 26-minute clip titled ‘Egg Drop From Space’.
The experiment saw Rober levelling up the humble egg drop challenge - a science activity that saw builders creating a structure to protect a raw egg from breaking when it dropped from a height.
The YouTuber’s first idea was to drop one off the Burj Khalifa in Dubai while his second one was to release one from space.
The initial plan was to fit an egg inside a rocket and fly it up to space in a balloon.
Once in the correct area, the rocket would begin to hurtle back down to Earth and land on a soft pad, thus saving the egg from smashing on impact.
One of the key things Rober had to deal with was protecting the egg on the journey to space.
He needed to insulate the egg for the journey, otherwise it'd freeze and quickly crack.
After launching the experiment, disaster struck as the weather balloon designed to lift the egg into space encountered issues.
On the two-hour ascent to space from the ground, twisting cords wrapped around the string designed to bring down the balloon.
The force eventually collapsed the balloon and the whole contraption started falling back to Earth at 150mph without coming apart and separating properly, which risked spelling doom for the egg.
All hope now rested on the chances of the egg-rocket being able to fire itself to freedom and land independently.
Thankfully it was able to jettison from the falling balloon and land back on dry land.
Opening up the rocket, Rober reached inside and was able to pluck out one distinctly unbroken egg, rendering the whole thing a huge success.
“We’re safe on Earth,” he exclaimed upon pulling the item free. “Two for two, baby.”
In the video’s caption, he wrote: “Next year we’re doing this on Mars.”
And while a third egg drop video is yet to be uploaded to the star’s channel in 2024, we’re still keeping our eyes peeled for the event.
Ella Scott