Meat pies in SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

Pie-lovers were given a novel but unrecommended way to freeze a meaty delight this week by sending the little beauty into space*. Youtube Video The meat and potato pastry parcel - still in its tin case - was tethered to a helium balloon and dispatched from mission control in a pub car park in Roby Mill, Wigan. Bods at the …

[Marc 25]

wondrous, magical and majestic!

(the story is not bad either)

[Christoph]

It's just

Pie in the sky

[king 2ombie]

Not the first!

Sorry register this is not the first pie in space!

Here in leafy Stoke-On-Trent there is an annual young engineer of the year competition run by a local engineering firm KMF. Last year's competition was to launch a HAL balloon and the team from Madeley High launched a Wright's pie into space! this was back in May 2016. I wasn't involved in that team but did see it launch majestically into the sky. Not sure what happened after that!

[TRT]

Not sure what the meat is...

It's an unidentified pieing object.

[VinceH]

Re: Not sure what the meat is...

They should obviously have used a pork pie for the muppet reference.

[Gordon 10]

Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

Somewhere he's looking down and approving - and probably wanting a slice of it.

(I presume PARIS is a failed dream at this point?)

[Dr. Mouse]

Re: Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

(I presume PARIS is a failed dream at this point?)

Erm... didn't PARIS actually happen? Or did I imagine that? If so, I have some BIG mental health problems...

I think you may have meant LOHAN. I've not heard anything about it for ages. Last I heard it was stalled because they couldn't get clearance from the FAA.

[Tikimon]

Re: Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

Yep, LOHAN. As much as I loved PARIS and admired Lester, I don't give it much chance even if the FAA gets out of the way. I feel like I'm the only one that seems to think flight testing (never done) is critical for this project.

PARIS was a glider simply dropped to fly down unguided, fairly simple. LOHAN is rail-launched from a balloon by rocket thrust, then uses the rocket to climb higher. It has an autopilot to actively manipulate control surfaces to control the climb, then fly back down. LOHAN is many times more complex than PARIS and is highly unlikely to Just Work on the first try. At the very least, an unpowered drop test from a Cessna to check if it even flies and if the autopilot works. That would still leave many unknowns including how the autopilot handles the thinner air at high altitude, how control surfaces handle the stress of rocket thrust (they already changed the canard joint once) and so on.

I would love for LOHAN to work, but without some serious testing it has little chance of success.

Dang, I miss Lester though...

[imanidiot]

Re: Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

I think there are still plans to get LOHAN flying, but I don't know how much momentum is remaining with the loss of Lester and the stonewalling/stalling/slowness of the FAA.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

@Gordon 10

(I presume PARIS is a failed dream at this point?)

She certain is. All Pie in the sky. I can but dream.

Oh, you mean that SPB thing? No idea

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

@Gordon 10

Somewhere he's looking down and approving - and probably wanting a slice of it.

He'll be needing something to wash it down with. So, how about a SPB project to send up a pint of his favourite brew into space?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

What is his favourite brew?

I once sold a car for a pie and a pint, I'm sure I can find a place to launch a beer from.

[x 7]

Re: Time to raise a pint to Lesters memory

"I once sold a car for a pie and a pint"

what sort of car? Was it a Yugo?

[Unep Eurobats]

Follow-up, please

So we have to wait until next week and the pie-eating championships to find out how the taste of the pie has been altered by its trip to the Edge Of Spaaaace?

Was there a control pie from the same batch that remained on terra firma?

[Valerion]

Re: Follow-up, please

Was there a control pie from the same batch that remained on terra firma?

There was <burp>

[Anonymous Coward]

FAIL

Not shortcrust pastry: Fail. As any foo kno, a proper pie is shortcrust.

Look at the abysmal efforts purveyed by Pukka Pies, for example.

[Tom 7]

Re: FAIL

No - a proper pie has hot water crust pastry and is either pork or scotch. Other nearly but not quite as fantastic pies may use shortcrust - or indeed a whole variety of pastries. I've even made a steak and kidney using flaky pastry allround which was pretty damn good (my own special home made overhopped IPA [Intentionally for Pies Ale] helped) but you cannot beat a proper pork pie.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: FAIL

All pies matter.

[Snar]

Re: FAIL

No, that pie was made of the right stuff! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: FAIL re "Pukka Pies"

I once knew someone who pronounced them "Puke-a-pies" ...

[x 7]

Re: FAIL re "Pukka Pies"

"I once knew someone who pronounced them "Puke-a-pies" ..."

Oh - you mean that's not the correct way to say it?

[Roger Greenwood]

Please tell me it was "Operation Growler"

With the tagline "Leaving the Earths' crust"

[TRT]

Scary take off!

It's brown sauce time.

[Baldy50]

Many people in Wigan are not amused! Poor thing not in a barm cake, just shocking, truly shocking!!!

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Not amused

@ Baldy50

Many people in Wigan are not amused!

Nor would you be if you go looking for Wigan Pier

[SVV]

When they hear that it was made in St Helens they'll all go ballistic.

A pie made in their rugby league rival's town being smuggled onto their own territory would be tantamount to treason to Lancashire's most fervent pie eaters.

I suggest Wiganers retaliate with a launch of a tin of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls from a pub car park in St Helens.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Lancashire's most fervent pie eaters.

Until quite recently (and for older sons of Wigan miners still) calling someone from Wigan a 'Pie Eater' would result in fisticuffs. Wiganers were dubbed 'Pie Eaters' by the Leythers when they broke the miners strike and ate humble pie in the 20's - many 100s of lives were lost as a result of the working conditions which continued. Think 'scab' squared.

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

And how many fat fuckers went chasing it thinking it's a free pie (not realising they were getting Pokemon Go style exercises)?

[breakfast]

"pie-rrty pooper"

That is a terrible term for people who insist on ruing a perfectly good headline with so-called "facts" and "accuracy." Don't they realise we live in a post-truth era.

No, these people are rats. Pie rats.

[hatti]

Future mission scope to dock with a sausage roll.

[Snar]

That would be a roll manoeuvre?

[I ain't Spartacus]

No, they should send up an apple pie, and dock it with a custard cloud.

Mmmmm custard.

[HxBro]

Pukka

This is just pukka

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Pukka

No, it was a proper pie.

[Chris G]

Meat and potatoe parcel

You mean it wasn't named meat?

I hope it was carrying an appropriate discount and being offered at a cut throat price!

[Mutton Jeff]

Well above the earth's crust...

[Richard Scratcher]

Downright dangerous

Somebody might have been killed by that falling pie. remember what happened to Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West).

"And he looked up in pained surprise and the concrete hardened crust,

Of a stale pork pie caught him in the eye and Ernie bit the dust."

[Anonymous Coward]

As we speak now the astronauts on the ISS are using a rod an line in a futile attempt without gravity to hook themselves a free pie as they are rather fed up the usual space slops.

[Ol'Peculier]

Iagine, you are on the ISS dreaming about home comforts, and a pie goes drifting past your window...

[Anonymous Coward]

Danger of falling pies

I'm surprised there has not been a massed vegan protest against the horror of being hit by meat pies from space.

[theModge]

Re: Danger of falling pies

It's a pie so...alleged meat

[TeeCee]

Re: Danger of falling pies

Only one way to deal with massed vegans.

Take off and pie the site from orbit...

[FullyGroan]

Pie Weight?

Of course you'd need to send the balloon Somewhere over the Rainbow to determine the weight.. way a pie!

[Anonymous South African Coward]

CMOT Dibbler will be selling off space-frozen pies soon...

[king 2ombie]

http://sentintospace.com/our-news/kmf-young-engineer-of-the-year-2016/

Madeley High school got there first! They launched a Wrights Pie into space as part of the KMF young engineer of the year competition earlier this year on 23rd May. See photographic proof in the article above

[YARR]

That was certainly the most upper crust pie I've ever seen.

[Fungus Bob]

With apologies to The Alan Parsons Project

I am the pie in the sky

Frozen for you....

(it's up to someone else to come up with the next line)

[Chemical Bob]

Re: With apologies to The Alan Parsons Project

I can feed mankind

[Barry Rueger]

With apologies to Dean Martin..

When the moon hits your eye,

Like a launched Wigan pie,

That's amore.....

[x 7]

Sam the Dog is still missing in Bowland

I see the pie landed somewhere near the Bowland Forest. I'd like to think Sam the Dog found it and ate it. The kids in the school would still like him back if anyone spots him

http://www.thevisitor.co.uk/news/video-cuddly-dog-launched-into-space-from-morecambe-1-7836405

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/find-sam-toy-dog-missing-space-morecambe-bay-burnley-a6973641.html

http://www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk/news/sightings-of-missing-morecambe-space-dog-1-7845580

[Oengus]

Amazon sets up a Pie delivery system

In breaking news Amazon today announced a new delivery mechanism for delivery of hot meat pies.

[narbadingi]

Famine relief

Brilliant method of reducing famine in far away countries without having to actually get there. Take frozen pies into space, and have them self-cook on re-entry so they're ready-to-eat when they arrive. I wonder if someone out there could work out the optimum altitude for appropriate reheat? I wonder if Comic Relief could make this a reality?

Not sure how to solve the landing problem, though. More a splat-down than splashdown.