r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/InsaneMocktail • Sep 08 '26

Video University of Waterloo Students Launch Rocket Breaking World Record

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7.0k

u/coldpassion Sep 08 '26

Breaking world record of....? Speed? Height? Noise? Spins? Fuel Consumption? All the previous?

3.3k

u/DiggWuzBetter Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 08 '26

Article about the launch and record: https://uwaterloo.ca/news/engineering/waterloos-student-rocketry-team-breaks-world-record

It’s a record for greatest altitude achieved by an amateur liquid bi-propellant rocket. The rocket achieved an altitude of 19.35 km (63,497 feet), which honestly is less than I would have guessed from this video. That’s roughly 2.2x the height of Everest (8.85 km above sea level), and to me it’s surprising that there’s a mountain nearly half this height, it just seems so insanely high in this video.

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u/fitnessexpress Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 09 '26

Fisheye lens on that camera makes it seem like you're seeing the curvature of the earth

EDIT: Oof. This isn't a flat-earth comment. It's only pointing out that the lens is exaggerating the curvature so it seems the horizon is more curved than it is (ergo the earth seems to be a smaller orb and the rocket seems to be further away than it is).

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u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 08 '26

At that height you would be able to but no where to that extreme.

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u/pyrojackelope Sep 08 '26

Yeah, there's one point where it stretches it out to an egg shape. Their achievement is still incredible, but it would have been nice if they used a normal lens.

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u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 08 '26

Probably went with lense just to capture "more".

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u/pyrojackelope Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26

You're telling me they built a rocket that almost went into space and they couldn't be bothered to hire someone to properly film it because this was "more"? Okay....

Edit: Sorry for pointing out your lack of enthusiasm for optics. As I said before, this is an incredible achievement. Everyone on the team should feel proud of themselves, except for the camera guy that was for some reason not hired.

10

u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 09 '26

64k feet is not almost into space. The karman line is 328k feet above sea level. There is no camera guy. Its a camera mounted on the rocket, they used this lense to give a wider area of view.

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u/Spicy_toad Sep 09 '26

You can hear the guy attached to the rocket breathing and he pulls a parachute.

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u/pyrojackelope Sep 09 '26

There is no camera guy

This immediately tells me you have no concept of what it takes to accomplish a project like this. There could have been, there wasn't.

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u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 09 '26

How in the fuck could have there been a camera guy this rocket isn't exactly big enough to hold a person are you on fucking glue

2

u/Spicy_toad Sep 09 '26

You can hear the camera guy breathing and the wobbly camera is from the forces of the rocket he is trying to hold it steady and he pulls parachute at end.

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u/EvilBiker-72 Sep 09 '26

You can hear him say " Hold my beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"

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u/Paramedickhead Sep 09 '26

Optics = weight

Weight = diminished performance

They “couldn’t be bothered” because the inclusion of extra lenses may have prevented them from a record breaking launch.

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u/pyrojackelope Sep 11 '26

Yes, they couldn't be bothered to record their world record properly. Are you and the other guy seriously brain damaged? My bad.