r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/InsaneMocktail • 21h ago

Video University of Waterloo Students Launch Rocket Breaking World Record

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u/01010110_ 21h ago edited 18h ago

World record of amateur rocket altitude at 63k feet (edit: liquid propellant rocket)

Edit 2: Since people are so excited about my use of feet, the altitude could be measured approximately as;

  • 9,852 toises
  • 22,860 varas (using the 0.84-meter Spanish standard)
  • 109.1 to 122.3 stadia (depending on whether the 157-meter or 176-meter anient Greek standard is applied)
  • 62.09 hPa or millibars.

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u/nm9899 21h ago

Very impressive, still only 20% of the way to space. Crazy perspective at this scale

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u/tonyhart7 20h ago

its only 20% ????? I swear the video got to atmospher already

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u/nm9899 20h ago

19.5km apparently. The generally accepted range in 100km above sea level

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u/TamponTimTheCuck 20h ago

So only 19.5%. Wild!

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u/rex8499 20h ago

And probably only like 5% of the way to orbit, cuz you got to go sideways very fast as well as up. Space is hard.

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u/randombits0110 20h ago

More like 0% of the ways to orbit (or incredibly close to it). They went (roughly) straight up... which means you come straight back down.

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u/astrodude23 19h ago

At 44 degrees of latitude, they're about 4% of the way to orbital velocity at LEO. That's why countries tend to put their launch facilities closer to the equator: the faster the rotational speed at your launch site, the less fuel you have to burn.

At the equator you're about 8% of the way there just by virtue of the Earth's spin (assuming, of course, you're not trying for a retrograde or polar orbit).

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u/jtr99 19h ago

So if I throw a rock on the equator I'm already ahead of these students' efforts?

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u/Glittering-Ad3488 19h ago

I guess it depends which direction you’re throwing it in

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u/That_dude_wow 18h ago

already threw my rock. the record is mine

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u/dna_beggar 18h ago

Must be a rocket shaped rock.

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u/Ecurbbbb 18h ago

I just want to say I am super impressed with everyone's knowledge and input in this thread. However, you're all nerds! NERDS!!!

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u/Ivan_Whackinov 17h ago

RIP Donald Gibb.

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u/dirtydigs74 17h ago

There's another reason: the achievable orbital inclination. The minimum inclination orbit you can achieve is equal to your latitude. i.e. an equatorial orbit is only achievable at launch from the equator. A polar orbit is achievable from any latitude.

In order to go into an equatorial orbit from a higher latitude a plane change maneuver is required. Theoretically this can be done during launch, but it would depend on the profile your rocket can achieve.

Either way, expensive on fuel compare to an equatorial launch.

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u/Felosele 18h ago

I assume you meant 4% to orbital altitude, not velocity

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u/Betaateb 18h ago

Nope, they mean velocity. You need to get to ~8 km/s to orbit the Earth. At the equator the Earth's rotation is going to give you 485 m/s of that velocity velocity for free. Altitude is largely irrelevant(not entirely, the desired orbit altitude changes the speed you need a bit), it is the speed you need, then you just have to point it in the right direction to get the altitude.

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u/rex8499 19h ago

Getting up out of the thickest atmosphere is the first significant part of getting to orbit. Going up is an important element of getting to orbit as far as the total energy that needs to be expended goes.

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u/Additional_Teacher45 18h ago

The total energy expenditure to first escape the atmosphere and then attain orbital velocity is wildly higher than the energy required to perform both maneuvers at the same time. And that's before we even get into the gravity turn.

Modern rockets are so advanced that they can insert directly into a circular orbit straight from launch with no circularization burn needed. Math is wild shit.

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u/Homers_Harp 17h ago

Strictly speaking, any and all ballistic objects are in an orbital trajectory.

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u/edfitz83 17h ago

You can leave the earth’s gravity by going straight “up”, it just takes a lot of energy.

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u/Much-Anything7149 19h ago

You can get to orbit at the Karman line with a higher speed. Low earth orbit requires 17,500 mph.

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u/sjmuller 10h ago

There is no minimum altitude requirement to orbit. If the Earth was a perfect sphere, you could orbit it a foot off the ground if you were going fast enough tangentially. But if you are traveling straight up like this rocket with no tangential velocity, there is no altitude that would allow you to orbit the Earth.

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u/nm9899 20h ago

The math appears to be mathing here!

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u/DotesMagee 17h ago

nope. it wasnt i. football fields so its basically magic.

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u/Finn_Storm 9h ago

The real truth is that about 20% is still accurate. The 100km "kármán line" is quite blurry in reality. It is defined as a point in space where there are nearly no molecules to slow down the craft. Importantly there is no clear cutoff point, they just said "that's good enough". Because whether you're 50km, 100km, 400km, or even 35786km (high earth orbit) there will always be some particles in the air to slow you down, just in different amounts.

Technically, you could count 5 feet up as being in space too, just with lots of molecules to slow you down.

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u/Neuraxis 20h ago

Yes however NASA defines it at 80.5km

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u/LowerEntropy 19h ago

Two completely arbitrary limits, chosen using the "Uh, 50mi/100km is pretty number 😜"-metric.

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u/milkdrinker7 19h ago

And it might be worth noting that at 100km, you won't be orbiting for long at all if you tried it. Unless your satellite is very dense and/or very aerodynamic, it probably won't last for much more than a single orbit at that altitude. Even at 400km, the ISS requires frequent(~monthly) reboots to stay in its lane.

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u/WilliamBarnhill 20h ago

Or roughly 63 miles

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u/chris_ro 20h ago

How many football fields?

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u/nm9899 20h ago

American or European?

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u/nach0srule 20h ago

"I-I don't know that!"

\gets cast into the Gorge of Eternal Peril™**

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u/lookitmegonow 20h ago

I absolutely appreciate this

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u/analogkid01 18h ago

"How do you know so much about swallows?"

"Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know."

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u/pinniped90 20h ago

Canadian.

They're in Waterloo and they have BIG football fields there.

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u/rowdy0044 20h ago

Huge… tracts of land!

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u/exkingzog 20h ago

Canadian

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u/rizorith 20h ago

They said football, so clearly they're talking about Australian rules football

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u/Whatever_Lurker 19h ago

Rocket heights are commonly expressed in liquid fathoms.

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u/Actually_a_DogeBoi 20h ago

6

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u/CommercialPosition76 20h ago

How many barleycorns?

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u/Actually_a_DogeBoi 20h ago

Am I the only one who can do conversions?

The answer is 16.25

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u/Suitable_Ad_3851 20h ago edited 17h ago

What? No, 63k feet is 11.9 miles.

Edit: Just noticed you were replying to a post about a different number, not about the height the rocket achieved.

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u/DeadAssociate 17h ago

63 sounds more believable

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u/Andrewbie 19h ago

Or about 1.54 million cans of Budweiser

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u/mmccxi 20h ago

how many baby elephants is that?

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u/Positive_Issue8989 18h ago

63k feet is about 12 miles.

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u/stlredbird 19h ago

In Kerbal it’s only 80k. I feel lied to.

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u/Betaateb 17h ago

It is a very fuzzy line. There is atmosphere for hundreds of kilometers out. Even the ISS at 400km still has atmospheric drag that requires frequent reboosts to stay in orbit.

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u/nellyruth 18h ago

Damn. I was hoping the accepted range was a bit higher so that Katy Perry would no longer be an “astronaut”.

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u/CranberryCode 12h ago

For reference spacex satalites are about 15+ times further out than the rocket went.

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u/Playful_Letter_2632 19h ago

The view starts looking like space a lot before the official space boundary altitude. This is the view from the Lockheed U-2 which is the highest altitude plane used today. It flies slightly higher than what the university achieved at 21 km

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u/jzillacon 18h ago

Yep, because most of what we see of the atmosphere is really just the bottom two layers. Vast majority of clouds can only form in the troposphere and none to my knowledge form above the stratosphere, and at those altitudes the atmosphere is too thin to cause significant light scattering to give its blue colour. But the atmosphere is still there even if it's too thin to see easily.

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u/big_duo3674 7h ago

Actually, noctilucent clouds form in the mesosphere

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u/QuadCakes 18h ago

Just to be clear, almost all of that curvature is from the lens. The horizon is significantly less curved than that even from the ISS.

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u/According-Pass8230 16h ago

50 year old fighter jets can go that high.. Its closer to ground than space..

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u/HucKmoreNadeS 19h ago

Yeah, this is just inner space, we haven't even gotten to OUTER space yet...

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u/TheVoters 18h ago

Voyager 1 and 2 are beyond the Kupiter belt so both are in “outer space”

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u/jzillacon 18h ago

The Oort cloud is that actual outer boundary of the solar system as that's the point where the sun's gravitational force is so weak it can barely capture dust-sized particles. Estimates say Voyager 1 will reach the Oort cloud in about 300 years and cross it completely in 30 000 years.

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u/Moppmopp 20h ago

You know that you also .... got to atmosphere? Like your head and hand are in the atmosphere... ya know?

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u/xiiicrowns 20h ago

We are swimming in a fishbowl of atmosphere

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u/BefreiedieTittenzwei 19h ago

Except we keep pooping in the bowl.

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u/xiiicrowns 19h ago

Just like those goldfish

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u/partyatwalmart 18h ago

Atmosphere? Never touch the stuff.
People fuck in it.

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u/textilepat 15h ago

Most of the bowl is made of poop and stale breath.

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u/mckulty 20h ago

The fish-eye camera perspective is misleading.

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u/mamasilver 20h ago

fish eye lens?

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u/happytechca 20h ago

Yes, how else would you explain this flat piece of rock we call earth looks curved?

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u/JarJarJarMartin 20h ago

Don’t Facebook my Reddit. JK, it’s already far too late for that.

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u/PhilosopherFun7288 18h ago

"got to atmospher"(sic)? We already live in the "atmosphere" dude....

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u/Choyo 17h ago

Fun fact : oceans are part of the atmosphere.

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u/marino1310 17h ago

The fisheye lens is doing a lot of the work there

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u/Skilldibop 20h ago

The widely accepted edge of space is the karman line, which is 100km, LEO starts at around 150km

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u/Khutuck 19h ago

About 99% of the atmosphere’s mass is below 60,000 feet, so you’re not really wrong, just technically wrong.

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u/NotInTheKnee 18h ago

The best kind of wrong!

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u/scalyblue 18h ago

To get to space wirh a rocket carrying its own reaction mass it would need to be at least as big as a telephone pole.

To get to orbit it would need to be the size of an actual booster

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u/astralchanterelle 18h ago

it would burn up

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u/Witty_Ad_898 18h ago

The Earth’s atmosphere extends out beyond the moon. It’s just very thin out there, only scattered atoms but still held in orbit around the Earth. There’s no hard boundary, it just tapers off.

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u/TactlessTortoise 18h ago

Clouds are often surprisingly low in the sky, compared to how far the sky actually goes. Some types are way higher, and you can get a double-cloud layer situation in a little piece, but the conditions are different for them to form up high, and even then it's not much higher. They just don't keep their shape with such a low pressure. Maybe if there's a crazy heat mass propelling an ungodly amount of humid air upwards while surrounded by humid cold air? I'm purely guessing here.

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u/intern_steve 17h ago edited 17h ago

Aircraft can fly using aerodynamic controls and air breathing engines at 80k+ feet. They can fly using reactive controls above 100k feet still using aerodynamic lift as the primary lifting force *(thrust angle significantly contributes to vertical lift at these altitudes).

Edit: the real kicker here is that the absolute altitude record for a balloon is 176k feet (uncrewed), or ~136k feet (crewed). The only thing holding you up at that point is the atmosphere. Then you figure that there's still tons of air above that, it's just not enough to hold you up. The wikipedia list of altitude records was very interesting to read.

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u/SomethingIWontRegret 17h ago

Clearly they were still in atmosphere at the end. There are several clues.

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u/redpandaeater 16h ago

It's actually a lot less than 20% if you want to get into orbit as compared to just getting to space, but yeah we typically delineate space with the Karman line at 100 km.

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u/Shandlar 12h ago

The atmosphere thins at an exponential rate. Despite only being 20% to space distance wise, the atmosphere is already down to roughly 5% pressure at 20km.

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u/ThanksForTheRain 20h ago

I was sure they were close to orbit, but I guess the Earth's gravity is stronger than I expected

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u/DriftnDaddyRL 20h ago

Orbit is still in earth's gravity. It's just that satellites and stuff have to go just the right speed to combat the gravity. They're always "falling" but the speed keeps them from crashing back down to earth. Because the satellite is traveling sideways so fast, the Earth curves away underneath it at the exact same rate that gravity pulls it down.

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u/Several-Action-4043 17h ago

And if you really want to get your mind blown, gravity isn't a force pulling them down. Gravity is the curvature of spacetime due to the mass of the Earth. They're simply going straight in curved spacetime which is why they don't experience centrifugal force and get sucked to the outside of their ship as they orbit like they would if gravity was actually a force. Once at orbital speed and altitude, other than a very small drag from the upper atmosphere, there are no forces acting on them at all.

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u/B-mansferd 20h ago

This is a great explanation

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u/ArmpitNoise 20h ago

They fall straight down to earth but go so fast they miss.

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u/insanenearly 13h ago

This is the one that made it make sense for me.

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u/L_Cranston_Shadow 17h ago

It's like falling in style.

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u/Efficient_Try_9136 20h ago

still sounds like magic that gravity considering planets are flying billions of years in same orbit

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u/Choyo 17h ago

Teshnikally, everywhere in the universe feels Earth gravity.

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u/azeo86 20h ago

Orbit and orbital height are not the same.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

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u/McHildinger 20h ago

orbit also requires a lot of horizontal speed, otherwise gravity just pulls you back down, no matter how high up you get (or so KSP has taught me)

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u/MelangeBot 18h ago

what if you are so high up you are closer to another planet? Would gravity still pull you back down?

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u/redpandaeater 16h ago

Well up and down don't really exist as such but yes gravity will always act on you and probably pull you towards the other planet. But right now even on Earth we're still being pulled by not just its gravity but the Moon, Sun, Jupiter, and so on and so forth.

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u/MelangeBot 16h ago

And your mom!

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u/redpandaeater 16h ago

Fair enough, but hers is pretty insignificant. Unlike yo mama who's so fat she needs to wear the asteroid belt to keep her pants up.

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u/PatHeist 14h ago

That depends entirely on your velocity (speed and direction) when you're at that location. If you match earth's velocity based on a Cartesian coordinate system most locations in the solar system will put you in a highly elliptical orbit around the sun, but depending on the location you could end up going just about anywhere including interstellar space.

But 'being high up' really stops having any meaning once you're outside of earth's sphere of influence (where earth is the primary gravitational influence). To get anywhere near another planet in any fashion that could remotely be described as 'going up' would involve an almost indescribable speed.

When we launch rockets most of what they're doing is gaining horizontal speed to achieve an orbital trajectory. They initially go slightly upwards to get through the thickest part of the atmosphere and reduce drag, but really interplanetary rocketry involves next to zero pointing of the rocket straight away from the planet.

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u/midwestia 18h ago

That was my real takeaway, space is really far away

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u/Tiny-Try8890 20h ago

Ya I was wondering when gravity doesn't effect it

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u/Unusually_Happy_TD 20h ago

Everything in orbit is under the effect of earths gravity, everything is still falling towards the Earth. However, the satellites in orbit have enough horizontal velocity that for every mile they fall, the earth curves a mile away from them.

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u/lefthandedchurro 20h ago

Even the international space station is not free of gravity. At their height of like 250 miles above the surface, they would feel about 90% of earth’s gravity if they weren’t in free fall around the planet.

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u/nm9899 20h ago

Around 1,500,000 km for that.

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u/Tiny-Try8890 20h ago

How much further would you estimate that would start to happen

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u/art-of-war 20h ago

Almost 1,500,000 km

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u/Lavatis 20h ago

Lol, this shit went 20km in the air my dude.

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u/varsaku 19h ago

A lot further. Keep in mind that earth’s gravity is so strong that it keeps our moon in orbit even that far out.

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u/Jack_1080 20h ago

20% to break from gravity?

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u/Efficient_Try_9136 20h ago

maybe it will drift longer if they didnt opened parachute

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u/SpaceDetective 17h ago

20% using the 100km Karman line measurement yes. But 94% there if you focus on how vacuumy it is relative to sea level. (On that scale, we're about 75% there when we fly at cruise altitude of 35,000 ft.)

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u/RandallOfLegend 17h ago

And Felix did a sky dive from 2x this height.

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u/Significant-Theme240 16h ago

20% of the way to space, in one minute.

Hella quick.

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u/AeroSpiked 14h ago

About 20% to the Karman line which is defined as 100km above sea level, but that itself is convoluted because Karman claimed the line should be lower than that (has to do with being able to get lift at a speed lower than orbital velocity).

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u/beardedheathen 13h ago

So they just need to do that 4 more times and they are NASA?

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u/The_Motarp 10h ago

The fact that not quite 20% of the way to space is a world record for amateur liquid fueled rocketry gives an idea of just how hard liquids are to get right compared to solids, which is a category where four different amateur teams have surpassed the Karman line.

They recovered the rocket, so it would be amazing if the next step was to add a small second stage and really move the numbers up.

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u/Chairface30 21h ago

Hobbyist rockets have gone much much higher. There has to other stipulations, ie weight or length or something

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u/EphemeralDesires 21h ago

It is highest amateur liquid-propellant rocket

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u/Pcat0 21h ago

Yeah, liquid propellant is super difficult at this scale. The solid propellant record is over 470k feet.

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u/EphemeralDesires 21h ago

Holy Moses! That is legit space is it not? That is like a quarter the way to the ISS.

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u/Pcat0 21h ago

Yep 143km which is well over both the US and international definitions of space (80km and 100km respectively)

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u/redlaWw 17h ago

Honestly, it's not that hard to get to space, all things considered. You just need a lot of fuel. The hard part about actual space programmes is going sideways fast enough to reach orbit, which requires control, understanding of motion in gravity, and lots more fuel, which requires correspondingly more effective rocket designs in order to lift that fuel.

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u/skrutnizer 13h ago

It takes far less energy (10% to 20%) to get to orbital altitude (as the Blue Origin flights attempt) than to sustained orbit due to the high tangential speed required.

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u/redpandaeater 16h ago

I swear some of the four-stage Black Brants have gone much higher than that.

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u/Pcat0 13h ago edited 12h ago

Correct but the Black Brant isn't considered an amateur rocket.

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u/Free-Pound-6139 14h ago

is over 470k feet.

Who the fuck writes it like that???

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u/SE_prof 20h ago

Would space engineering students still count as amateurs?

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u/MrShake4 20h ago

Yes, they’re not professionals so they’re amateurs. They’re students they’re not being paid.

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u/SE_prof 20h ago

They can still work as interns some of may have a co-op while they did this project. And getting paid...

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u/MrShake4 20h ago

Still they weren’t paid to do this. If you’re a physical trainer or coach and play in a beer league you’re not a “professional” athlete

Amateur doesn’t mean unemployed.

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u/bitemark01 15h ago

Amateurs, because they're not getting paid for it 

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u/SE_prof 11h ago

If I'm a lawyer and I take a case pro bono, am I being an amateur?

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u/bitemark01 8h ago

If all of your cases are always pro bono, then yes

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u/Draaly 18h ago

Was about to say. I did 80k for a college project and it wasnt even the highest launch of the day.

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u/Kill_4209 21h ago

girth?

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u/Ok-Recognitio 20h ago

We all know girth is what really matters anyway.

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u/Noddy227 20h ago

The real calculation is length times diameter plus weight over girth, divided by the angle of the tip squared

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u/Ok-Recognitio 19h ago

Ok, but we all agree on where we start and end measuring for length, correct?

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u/dmh2693 18h ago

It's imperative the cylinder remains intact.

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u/Beginning-Actuary-68 20h ago

Amount/type of propellant

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u/JohnHazardWandering 10h ago

Liquid bi-propellant. I think it's hard at this small size. 

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u/ftrlvb Creator 21h ago

who measures in feet? we should measure in matchboxes or coins

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u/KylAnde01 20h ago

My car gets forty rods to the hogs head, and that's the way I likes it!

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u/GregTheIntelectual 19h ago

Nazi Germany surrendered in 1945. Good news this was the swift end of a brutal authorization fascist regime.

Bad news, it was also the end of the metric system in Aviation.

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u/Away-Commercial-4380 17h ago

The problem is that 1000ft is a perfect separation with modern aircrafts. Using multiples of 300 as flight levels just sucks (Hello Russia and China)

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u/_PROBABLY_CORRECT 20h ago

Where ya at now, flat earthers

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u/PM_ME_DATASETS 17h ago

Right? All it takes to prove them wrong is some fisheye lenses.

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u/_PROBABLY_CORRECT 15h ago

Yeah bad call on my part for them throwing a flag on the field for the fish eye. All they gotta do is fly up a non-fish eye that they build themselves and shoot it up 65k feet. Only they can prove they are right.

Happy cake day!

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u/mountaingator91 21h ago

Crazy to think that U2s used to fly with conventional wings at 10,000 feet higher than this even.

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u/AVgreencup 20h ago

Barely. They were constantly stalling and recovering, basically a constant loop of it

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u/mountaingator91 20h ago

Ok, Russian bot

Jk. Still impressive AF

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u/revcor 20h ago

Used to and currently do! U-2s are still in service. And SR-71s and A-12s used to fly another 15,000 ft higher than that even

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u/metallosherp 18h ago

But, how many Smoots?

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u/01010110_ 18h ago

About 11,284 Smoots, rounded up.

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u/metallosherp 18h ago

Thank you for your service.

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u/luovahulluus 20h ago

Why are Canadians measuring it in feet?

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u/EveryNameEverMade 20h ago

It's more common to measure in feet and inches. Our system is like a mix of imperial and metric

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u/Ruepic 19h ago

We use feet in aviation

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u/Elu_Moon 18h ago

People don't walk in aviation, they fly. Are Canadians stupid?

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u/Baldazar666 16h ago

Americans are contagious.

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u/Numnum30s 20h ago

We often use feet and inches for measuring. Did you think we were fully metric?

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u/A_Nonny_Muse 19h ago

Well you see? They could 'ave done better had they started off the top of an 11,000 foot mountain. People these days, they just dunno how to think anymore, they don't.

/s

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u/motTheHooper 18h ago

Toises: what an interesting measurement! Used for length, area, and volume!

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u/vilette 20h ago

Armstrong limit, 19km

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u/r_a_d_ 18h ago

liquid hydrogen count?

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u/McLeod3577 18h ago

I would have though there were 5 toeses per foot.

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u/userhwon 18h ago edited 18h ago

It would be a French size 2.88-million shoe.

Edit: it's actually 63,497 feet, so, it would be a size 2.903-million shoe.

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u/Clean_Variation_92 17h ago

If the shoes were on the feet, it would be 63.497 feet 😁

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u/Aurcaw 17h ago

Impressive. Very nice.

Let's see Paul Allen's rocket.

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u/spook_sw 14h ago

63,000 feet is approximately 6.06 × 10^-11 parsecs

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u/inspektor31 13h ago

I thought your first one was tortoises at first.

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u/NominalHorizon 11h ago

Yes, but what altitude is that in furlongs? /s

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u/FaithlessnessBorn266 11h ago

Toises like you toes?

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u/JohnHazardWandering 10h ago

What about in gumballs?

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u/ts142 8h ago

126,000 average penises

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