# If they can send ONE Hello Kitty doll into space.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 11, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-can-send-one-hello-kitty-doll-into-space/649996 "2013-02-11T18:07:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-can-send-one-hello-kitty-doll-into-space/649996/1 "2013-02-11T18:07:18Z")
…why can’t they send them all? Easy answer: Because there’s already enough debris in LEO, and we don’t needc to exacerbate the Kessler Syndrome. [http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/girl-blasts-hello-kitty-doll-space-191135994--abc-news-tech.html](http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/girl-blasts-hello-kitty-doll-space-191135994--abc-news-tech.html) > [@](#): > > Girl Blasts Hello Kitty Doll Into Space > > It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s Hello Kitty. > > That’s what a seventh grade student from California had in mind when she came up with her dream science project: sending a Hello Kitty doll her dad brought back from a business trip in Japan into space. > > Lauren Rojas, a 12-year-old from Antioch, Calif., got the idea after seeing a television commercial in which a balloon was launched into the sky. She thought she could do the same with her Hello Kitty doll. She would test air pressure and temperature at high altitude for her school’s science fair. > > “I said, ‘Wow, are you serious?’” Lauren’s teacher, Annette Cluck of Cornerstone Christian School, told [ABCNews.com](http://ABCNews.com). “I was kind of blown away because usually students don’t do something that extravagant.” > > Cluck, who teaches seventh and eighth grade science at the school, gave Lauren the okay to move ahead with her project. Lauren turned to her dad, Rod Rojas, for help. > > “We spent about one month planning and executing it,” he said. “We used a company called High Altitude Science in Colorado to get the equipment, the weather balloon and flight computer.” So they really sent it up in a high-tech balloon. Impressive (especially for a pre-ten), but hardly “blasting off” into “space”. The part that caught my eye was this: > [@](#): > > The balloon reached an altitude of 93,625 feet (17.73 miles), Rojas said. There, the air was so thin that the balloon burst, sending Hello Kitty from the sky. It landed in a tree 47 miles from the launch sight, according to Rojas. Phew! Good thing it landed in a tree. How’d you like to be the first person killed by a Hello Kitty doll falling from a height of 17 miles?\* \*Yes, I know it probably wouldn’t kill him/her. The only person ever hit by a meteorite only got a bruise. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-can-send-one-hello-kitty-doll-into-space/649996/2 "2013-02-11T18:51:04Z")
First: Did they call the fire department to get it down? Second: Don’t discount the psychological trauma of being assaulted by a (near) space-based Hello Kitty weapons platform. If, after a few years of paranoid sky watching and panic attacks every time they leave the house, the person struck were to commit suicide, would it count as being killed by the Hello Kitty doll? Third: Next time, she needs to land the doll on the moon. Then the Internet will enshrine her ponified image. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2013, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-they-can-send-one-hello-kitty-doll-into-space/649996/3 "2013-02-11T19:03:06Z")
Still pretty damn good for a 7th grader. There may be hope for the future.