This article is more than 1 year old
Potato in SPAAAAACE: LOHAN chap cooks up stratospud with Heston Blumenthal
Dave Akerman hobnobs with 'Pie in the Sky' TV chef
Pics Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team member Dave Akerman confirmed his status as one of the UK's go-to guys* for high-altitude ballooning (HAB) launches when he popped up on Channel 4 last week in Heston Blumenthal's Great British Food series.
The celebrity food-botherer wanted to send a potato aloft to confirm - as NASA has apparently proved - that exposure to low pressure and temperature will break down the spud's cell walls, offering the delicious prospect of super-creamy space mash.
The experiment, part of an episode in which Blumenthal "salutes the great British pie as he looks to find inspiration for a three-course pie banquet", took place in October last year. Here's the preflight potato in its custom-built transportation vehicle:
As tradition dictates, the mission was preluded by the consumption of bacon nourishment provided by Dave's missus Julie, seen here as the filling in a Dave-Heston sandwich:
According to Dave, the launch went smoothly...
...with Blumenthal doing the honours:
Biting the hand that feeds IT
