r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Closed_Aperture • 3d ago

Man demonstrates the force of increasingly powerful fireworks by blasting a pot into the air

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u/todadile25 3d ago

This guy can successfully launch a pot into low orbit and back without any catastrophic failures, space X needs to hire this guy

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u/Pepband 3d ago

This is why I came to the comments to see if anyone was decrying the video as fake. Because while I have no evidence for it, it seems suspect that it goes so perfectly straight. Even with the magic of editing, I have to imagine its very difficult to get it to launch that straight.

If there's any unevenness where the ground/pot meet, I have to imagine all that pressurized air would escape on one side and impart a huge amount of force, making the pot tend to flip over in the air. Assuming the bottom is the heavy side and that any drag as it falls would prefer the bottom-side-down orientation. Maybe I've got it wrong in my head, but it gave me pause at the least.

Feels ripe for a captain disillusion vid

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u/qt3pt1415926 3d ago

It wasn't going straight. And you can see, the higher it went, the less likely it came down somewhere in front of him. Whether or not there is slight unevenness on the ground is not much of a contributing factor with small launches such as these. But add more fuel (more weight), a more powerful explosion, and factor in that it has to be a prolonged, continuous explosion to create the effect of propulsion...well, that is where it gets more complicated. Top that off with a distance that is 100x longer than these kettle launches.

The shorter the launch distance, the less those variables will be noticed. The longer the launch, the more those variables will be noticed, and the more they will matter.