Chaos Audio’s flagship Bluetooth guitar effects pedal, Chaos Stratus, from two years ago is finally getting launched. To mark the occasion, Chaos Audio sent Stratus to the stratosphere, at 108,394 feet (20.5 miles or 33 km) above sea level, on November 01, 2022. With the Stratus entering the stratosphere’s domain, it officially became the first guitar pedal in space. Why? Well because it can.
For this epic adventure (for a guitar pedal), Chaos Stratus was taken to around 108,000 feet on a giant weather balloon, along with a cooler containing a GPS tracker, a battery pack, and a GoPro to record the entire journey. A couple of Hothands hand warmer to throw in to keep things a little warm as the journey will be a cold one.
In between the helium-filled weather balloon and the cooler box was a parachute that will slow down the descent when the balloon popped at its max altitude.
The balloon was launched at Panama City Beach in Florida and it traveled about 150 miles (about 241 km) to somewhere over Georgia when it attained its max altitude at which point, it popped and began free-falling for a few minutes before the parachute deploys and it began a controlled descent back to Earth. It eventually landed on some branches of a large tree in Quitman, GA. And so it did.
Not sure what was the condition of the pedal braving the icy cold minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit ( -56.67 Celsius) stratosphere but one lucky person will get to find out when Chaos Audio gives it away on December 9 during the launch of the product. You can have a shot at scoring this first guitar pedal in space by entering a contest on the Chaos Audio website.
For everyone else who wants to get their hands on this high-tech, connected guitar pedal, the Chaos Stratus will be available to order on December 9 for US$399 and it will be shipped by Christmas. Meanwhile, you can watch the entire proceeding, including the preparation and retrieval, over at the Chaos Audio website. You can also see the journey itself in the video below.
Images: Chaos Audio.
