Watch As an Egg Falls From Near Space - and Survives (video)

A former NASA engineer and YouTuber has made a viral sensation with a video in which he documents efforts to send an egg to near space to see if it cracks when it lands on the ground.

A video made by a former NASA engineer who is now a YouTuber about efforts to send an egg to near space to see if it breaks when it lands has gone viral.

Mark Rober had the idea to see if an egg could survive a fall from high up in the stratosphere, or near space, and land on a mattress.

Rober and his team, which included some people who used to work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, decided on an experiment in which an egg would be held by the tip of a rocket-shaped vehicle and carried by a high-altitude balloon to an altitude of over 100,000 feet, or about 19 miles (30.5 kilometers), before falling back to Earth. 

The rocket, which had fins to help it steer, would aim for the mattress and drop the egg from about 100 meters (300 feet) up.

Even though it sounds easy, it wasn't at all. What happened next was a hard three-year journey with canceled launches, "dumb failures," lost helium and silly voices, GPS problems, eggs lost in the name of science, and much more.

Mark Rober sent an egg to space in a rocket-shaped vehicle, which was carried to an altitude of 100,000 feet.

Rober said he wanted to future-proof his record by going to outer space, but didn't know it would be the most physically, financially, and mentally draining video he would ever attempt.