posted 02-07-2024 04:35 PM               

Definitions differ on where outer space begins — about 62 miles up, according to many scientists. But at 20 miles, the company, which calls itself "Near Space experts," says its cameras capture "the blackness of space, the thin blue line of the atmosphere and the curvature of the Earth."

A baby stroller, Tic Tacs, Jameson whiskey, a 7-Eleven Slurpee, a wedding dress and a portrait of Shakespeare are among objects that have journeyed "to the edge of space," the company says, often for marketing campaigns.

Some efforts are in the name of science, such as a meat-and-potato pie launched by Harry's Bar, a U.K. pub that organizes a world champion pie-eating competition. According to the bar's website, they wanted to "boldly go where no pie has been before," and see if the journey changed the pie's molecular structure.

A launch can cost from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands, Rose says, and the company does up to three a week.

posted 02-07-2024 04:54 PM               

Coincidentally, a friend shared an advertisement for another of Sent Into Space's clients just yesterday, the Blue Dot from Diatom Watches. The timepiece has an embedded piece of a meteorite on its dial and a ring made in part from metal from a "lunar flown Apollo command module," as well as "each and every Diatom watch has been flown beyond the Armstrong limit, the gateway to Near Space, reaching an altitudes over 100,000ft above the Earth."

That last point seems clear enough, but its muddled by Diatom's claims elsewhere on its website that the watches are "space flown" or "flown on a mission to space." I emailed Diatom to inquire why they feel those later statements are warranted (as well as to ask about the provenance of the Apollo command module metal). They have yet to reply, but it has only been a day.