Imagine that you are in space, floating in your spacesuit and holding an egg in your hand. You realize that this is the perfect time to drop the egg back to earth and see if it survives the impact. Basically that’s what a former NASA engineerbut through a small probe that he developed, that is, without the human element.
Logic tells you that if an egg breaks when you drop it on the kitchen floor and ruins your breakfast, if it travels from space it should be destroyed. However, this scientist managed to create an environment that made the chicken egg arrive intact.
How is it possible to do this without the egg breaking? After all, the speed and force of the impact upon entering Earth’s atmosphere might be enough to turn the egg into a sticky little explosion of yolk and white.
Former NASA engineer Mark Rober shows us on his YouTube channel how he developed a process that found ways to protect the egg during its journey from space to Earth.
You could wrap it in several layers of cotton or foam, or place it in a box or container specially designed to withstand the impact. But none of that, Rober launched it alone and on Earth he only placed a kind of foam rubber mattress that cushioned the drop.
As it did?
Before choosing the rocket and the balloon with which he carried and supported the egg in space, he calculated the speed that the egg could reach when falling and entering the atmosphere. The equation gave him that it was 75 kilometers per hour.
So he first did the speed experiment horizontally and saw how the egg didn’t break. In this way he sent the egg to low orbit and dropped it to surprise his own and strangers with this wonderful experiment.