YouTube is riddled with banal videos of cats falling off stuff, wannabe celebrities and random personal rants. But there are also absolute gems on there which deserve your undivided attention. This is one of them.
The Qu8k (pronounced ‘Quake’) rocket was launched from Black Rock Desert in Nevada on September 30th of this year. It’s goal was to win John Carmack’s 100kft Micro Prize by reaching an altitude of 100,000 feet (18.9 miles / 30.4 km), and then be recovered within 24 hours. Carmack is the co-founder of id Software, the company behind the Wolfenstein, Quake and Doom video games, so he’s got plenty of spare cash to throw around in the pursuit of advancing science and technology.
However it’s Derek Deville and his team of helpers who designed and built Qu8k, and then thoughtfully put a bunch of HD cameras onboard so everyone could get to see what it’s like to reach an altitude of 121,000 feet in just over a minute and half!
Needless to say it’s fairly epic stuff, and in just a one minute you go from being moderately impressed by some guy’s metalwork skills, to realising how small and insignificant you really are as the world stretches out beneath the camera.
View the full launch footage in the video below, and the highlights video below that.
Source: Derek Deville via Gizmag
Mega Cool. Over 9000!
This is used to be an up to date sports car news website.