US students send hamburger into space

Felix Baumgartner has been in the news a lot recently after he successfully completed a skydive from 24 miles up in the air.

This is undoubtedly an impressive achievement, as it shows the limits the human body can be pushed to.

However, a group of Harvard students have proved they can innovate on a much smaller budget, as they sent a hamburger 19 miles into space for just $1,000 (£628).

Called Operation: Skyfall, it saw five young men place the meal in a Styrofoam shipping crate and attach it to a 600-gram weather balloon filled with helium.

Thanks to a GPS monitor fitted in the device, the burger was recovered after its descent, some 130 miles north of where it was launched.

The only problem was they had to varnish the meat to make sure it could handle the extreme weather conditions, which means that no one could eat it afterwards.

Posted by Samantha Thompson