Masters Of The Stratosphere

World View has figured out how to keep a balloon stable in near space. Interested in a ride?

- Ashlee Vance

The chicken sandwich has to get to space.

This is what everyone at World View Enterprises Inc. was thinking as they set to work in the predawn hours of June 29, 2017, at the Page Municipal Airport in Arizona. KFC Corp. had hired World View, a maker of high- altitude balloons, to ferry a Zinger, which consists of a spicy breaded chicken fillet topped with lettuce and a little mayonnaise on a sesame seed bun, through the upper reaches of the atmosphere and into the heavens. The publicity stunt would result in glorious images of the sandwich set against the stark black backdrop of space, and it would announce World View and its balloons to the paying public. “At first we thought it might not be a good idea,” says Andrew Antonio, director for business development at World View. “People would think we’re the chicken sandwich company, and that would be really bad. But we were just starting out, and ultimately this seemed like the perfect opportunity to use millions of dollars in KFC’s ad budget to tell our story.”

The Zinger launch preparations were intense. In the months leading up to the flight, nondisclosure agreements were put in place and signed. Rob Lowe was hired as a spokesman. A team of engineers built a solar-powered, animatronic KFC bucket that could tweet, take selfies, and house the sandwich beneath a protective glass dome. Zingers were tested in thermal vacuum chambers to see how they would react to pressure and temperature extremes. Then, just ahead of the launch, a group of food artists took over a local KFC and cooked dozens of Zingers, coating them with strange substances to make them beautiful. The Zingers were lined up and judged like pageant participants, and one was finally anointed the hero sandwich, the one with the fowl charisma and fast-food fortitude to brave the rigors of space in the name of over-the-top marketing.