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Could You Ride a Water Slide from Space? | Crazy kids questions explained · The Curious Kidcast | Fun Facts and Curious Questions

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  You're standing at the edge of space, 100 kilometres above
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  Earth. You can see stars in broad
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  daylight. The planet curves beneath you,
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  and right there at your feet is a water slide.
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  Would you go faster than the speed of sound?
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  Definitely. Would you arrive at the bottom
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  like a screaming human meteorite?
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  Probably. Would the water even stay on the
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  slide, or would it just float away into space having an
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  existential crisis? Great question.
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  Today we're exploring the most bonkers water slide ever
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  imagined. Stick around because this is
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  going to get weird. Curious kid cast?
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  Here we go. Questions poppin.
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  Minds will blow Big ideas. They're taking flight.
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  Let's explore. Feel the light.
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  Hey there, curious kids. I'm Charlie, and welcome to the
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  Curious Kid cast, where we answer the questions that make
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  grown-ups say, why would you even think about that?
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  Today's magnificently ridiculous question comes from Liam in
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  Manchester, England. Liam was at his local water park
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  last summer, zooming down the tallest slide, when he looked up
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  and saw an airplane flying overhead.
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  And he thought, what if the slide went all the way up there?
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  And then because Liam's brain clearly doesn't have an off
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  switch, he thought, what if it went even higher?
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  So this one's for you. Let's build a water slide from
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  space and see if we survive. Spoiler alert, we probably
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  won't. All right, First things first,
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  where exactly is the edge of space?
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  Because I'm assuming it's not just like really high up
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  scientists call it the Carmen line, which sounds like a fancy
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  coffee drink, but is actually the point about 100 kilometres
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  above Earth where planes can't fly anymore because the air is
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  too thin. That's where you're officially
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  in space. To help you picture how absurdly
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  high that is, Mount Everest is about 9 kilometres tall.
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  The Burj Khalifa, the tallest building on Earth, is less than
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  one kilometre, but 100 kilometres.
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  That's like stacking 11 Mount Everest on top of each other,
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  then putting a water slide on top, then realizing you've made
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  a terrible decision. Now I get dizzy standing on a
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  chair to change a light bulb, so the thought of climbing 100
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  kilometres makes my legs turn to Jelly and my brain go Nope.
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  But let's say you've made it to the top.
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  Congratulations on your terrible life choices.
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  What would it actually be like up there?
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  Well, even though you're technically in space, gravity
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  hasn't forgotten about you. You wouldn't float around like
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  an astronaut on the International Space Station
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  eating floating grapes. Nope, gravity is still very much
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  yanking you downward. The real problems are there's
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  almost no air to breathe, it's colder than your freezer, and
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  water behaves like it's gone completely bonkers.
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  So instead of rocking up in your swimming trunks in a towel,
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  you'd need something more like a space suit welded to a wet suit.
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  Let's call it a sweat suit, which sounds like the worst
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  fashion trend ever invented. Imagine trying to go down a
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  water slide wearing what's basically a sleeping bag made of
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  metal. OK, you're suited up.
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  You're sitting at the top of the slide.
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  You take a deep breath inside your ridiculous space suit, and
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  you push off. This is where things go from
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  exciting to absolutely terrifying.
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  On a normal water slide, gravity pulls you down and you go pretty
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  fast, maybe as fast as a car driving through your
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  neighborhood fun times. But from 100 kilometers up,
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  gravity gets to pull you For 100 entire kilometers.
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  You would get faster and faster and faster, and then even faster
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  than that. You'd zoom past roller coaster
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  speeds. You'd leave race cars in the
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  dust. You could even break the speed
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  of sound, which is about 1200 kilometres per hour, creating a
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  Sonic boom so loud it would sound like the sky itself was
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  breaking. And here's a fun fact that's not
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  actually fun at all. When you're travelling that
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  fast, water stops feeling soft and squishy.
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  It feels hard, like smack into concrete hard.
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  The air pushes back so violently that your body would basically
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  give up on life without some seriously impressive braking
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  systems. You wouldn't splash cheerfully
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  into a nice pool at the bottom. You'd arrive like a meteor
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  that's also somehow very wet and screaming.
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  This is why the ride would come with a warning label.
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  Reading may cause instant vaporization.
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  Side effects include becoming a fireball.
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  But hold on, Before we even get to the hole arriving like a
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  comet situation, we have an even bigger problem.
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  Would there actually be water on this slide?
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  Because here's the thing. Water is a real drama queen in
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  space. At the edge of space, where
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  there's almost no air pressure, water can't decide what it wants
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  to be. It might boil, it might freeze
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  solid, it might just float away as tiny, confused droplets.
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  Basically, water looks around, realizes it's in space, and has
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  a complete identity crisis. So if you tried to pour water
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  onto an open slide, it wouldn't flow nicely down like at a
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  normal water park. It would either turn into ice
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  cubes, disappear as steam, or just drift off into the void
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  like, well, I'm leaving. To actually make it work, you'd
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  need to completely seal the slide, heat it up enough to keep
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  the water liquid, and pressurize it like you're inside a
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  submarine. At that point, it's not really
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  an open air water slide anymore, it's more like a giant
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  pressurized space tube full of water that you're hurtling
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  through at the speed of sound. Which honestly still sounds kind
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  of cool, just not in the way we originally imagined.
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  OK, let's say we've sorted out the water drama.
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  Now comes the truly impossible part, getting the water up there
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  in the 1st place. Think about carrying a bucket of
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  water up a single flight of stairs.
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  Bit tiring, yeah? Now imagine carrying that water
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  100 kilometres straight up while fighting gravity the entire way.
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  Water is ridiculously heavy. One big bathtub of water weighs
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  as much as a car, so pumping enough water to run a slide 100
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  kilometres up would require pumps the size of buildings,
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  enough electricity to power a small city, and pipes so strong
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  they could probably survive a nuclear explosion.
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  You'd probably have to reuse the same water over and over,
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  pumping it back up after every single ride.
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  Even then it would use more energy than many entire towns
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  use in a whole day. So basically you'd need your own
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  power station just to run 1 water slide.
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  The ticket price would probably be £1,000,000 per person per
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  ride. Right?
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  We've solved the water problem. Kind of.
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  Maybe not really, but could we even build a structure 100
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  kilometres tall in the 1st place?
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  Short answer, absolutely not. Longer answer, Are you kidding
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  me? Of course not.
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  Here's why A-100 kilometre tall structure would face problems so
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  enormous they make regular engineering problems look like
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  child's play. The bottom would be crushed by
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  the weight of everything above it, winds would push it over,
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  temperature changes would make it bend and crack like a
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  biscuit, and Earth's rotation would pull it sideways.
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  Because apparently even the planet doesn't want this to
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  exist. Even the strongest materials we
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  have, like super advanced carbon fibre or mega strong steel,
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  would collapse under their own weight.
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  This is why space elevators only exist in science fiction, and
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  why the tallest buildings we've actually built are only about 1
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  kilometre tall. When engineers hear about a 100
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  kilometre building, they don't get excited, they laugh and then
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  cry a little bit. So what's the highest water
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  slide we could actually build? With today's technology, the
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  tallest water slides are around 50 to 60 meters.
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  That's about as high as a 15 to 20 Storey building, which is
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  already tall enough to make your stomach do backflips and make
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  you question all your life decisions.
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  If engineers really pushed it, maybe in the future we could
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  build 1 a few 100 meters tall, possibly built into a mountain
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  with approximately 7000 support beams and safety systems
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  everywhere. That would be taller than most
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  skyscrapers. But anything taller than that
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  becomes unsafe, unstable, and let's be honest, a spectacularly
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  bad idea. So the highest possible water
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  slide is probably hundreds of metres, definitely not
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  kilometres, and absolutely not 100 kilometres.
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  Sorry to burst your bubble, or should I say deflate your
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  inflatable ring. But wait, could we at least make
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  a space slide safe? Only if we completely ruined all
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  the fun. To make it survivable you'd need
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  a really gentle spiral that barely goes down, massive breaks
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  every 10 meters, controlled air pressure like you're in a
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  submarine, and a descent so slow it would take actual hours.
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  At that point. It's not a water slide, it's
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  basically the world's wettest, slowest elevator.
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  You wouldn't be screaming with joy, you'd be checking your
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  phone, eating a sandwich, maybe taking a nap.
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  But even if we can't build it, just imagining the ride is
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  pretty incredible. Picture what you'd see.
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  Pitch black space slowly turning deep blue, stars disappearing as
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  the sky gets brighter, clouds rushing past your face, the
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  entire planet getting bigger and bigger below you until you can
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  see cities and rivers and forests.
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  It would feel absolutely incredible and absolutely
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  terrifying at the same time. Like falling through the entire
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  sky. Like riding gravity itself from
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  space all the way home. It would be the most epic, most
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  bonkers, most unforgettable ride ever conceived by human
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  imagination. So, final verdict Is a water
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  slide from space actually possible?
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  With today's technology? Absolutely not.
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  With future technology, maybe tiny bits of it, but probably
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  not the whole package. As a real, actual, proper water
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  slide with splashing and screaming?
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  Almost certainly never. But here's the brilliant thing.
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  Asking this crazy question taught us so much.
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  We learned that gravity's unbelievably powerful and never
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  takes a break. We learned the space is way
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  closer than we think, but also way harsher.
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  We learned that water is a total drama queen when you take it out
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  of its comfort zone. We learned that building tall
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  things is way harder than it looks.
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  And we learned why Earth, with its perfect air pressure and
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  liquid water and not too hot, not too cold temperature is such
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  an incredibly special place. A water slide from the edge of
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  space will probably never exist. But thinking about it, imagining
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  it, figuring out why it wouldn't work, that's what science is all
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  about. Because the best discoveries
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  start with someone asking a completely ridiculous question
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  and then saying, but what if? All right, curious kids, before
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  we finish, it's quiz time. I've got 3 questions about
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  today's episode, and you've got 5 seconds to think about each
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  answer. If you get them all right,
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  you're officially a certified Space Water Slide expert, which
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  is a qualification that will impress absolutely nobody, but
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  sounds cool anyway. Ready.
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  Here we go, question one. How high is the edge of space,
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  also called the common line? Is it a 10 kilometres, B100
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  kilometres, or C1000 kilometres? The answer is B 100 kilometres.
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  That's the same as stacking 11 Mount Everest on top of each
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  other, which sounds like a terrible idea but also kind of
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  amazing. Question two What would happen
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  to water at the edge of space if you try to put it on an open
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  slide? Would it A flow perfectly
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  normally, B turn into chocolate milkshake, or C boil, freeze or
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  float away into space? The answer is C It would boil,
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  freeze or float away. Water absolutely hates being in
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  space and has a complete meltdown about it.
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  And no, sadly it does not turn into chocolate milkshake,
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  although if it did I'd be building this slide tomorrow.
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  Question 3. How tall are the tallest water
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  slides we can actually build today?
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  Is it a 5 meters, B50 to 60 meters or C 500 meters?
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  The answer is B50 to 60 meters, which is about as tall as a 15
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  to 20 Storey building. That's already high enough to
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  make you scream, but it's absolutely nothing compared to
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  100 kilometers of space slide. How did you do?
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  If you got all three right, congratulations, you are now a
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  space water slide genius. If you got them wrong, don't
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  worry, at least you're not the person who has to actually build
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  this thing. And that's it for today's
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  episode of the Curious Kid cast. Massive thanks to Liam from
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  Manchester for this brilliantly bonkers question.
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  If you love this episode, share it with your friends, your
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  teacher, your cat, anyone who'll listen.
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  Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next one.
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  And if you've got a curious question bouncing around in your
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  brain that you desperately need answered, head over to
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  curiouskidcast.com and send it our way.
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  We'd absolutely love to hear from you.
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  Until next time, stay curious, keep asking the weird questions,
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  and remember the best ideas are the ones that make you think.
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  Wait, could we actually do that? I'm Charlie.
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  This has been the Curious Kid cast.
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  And I'll see you next time. Hey.
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  We'll let your questions rise. Listen up to the endless sky.
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  Everyone is as far so bright. Curious kid cast.