How to fly a paper airplane from Germany to Australia

From: http://dvice.com/

The distance from Germany to Australia is approximately 10,000 miles. This seems like rather a long way for a paper airplane to fly. As it turns out, it's really not so hard, if you just launch a hundred of 'em from 20 miles up.

Samsung, in an effort to prove that its memory cards are durable enough for all of your high altitude paper airplane launching needs, has sponsored the launch of 100 paper airplanes from a helium balloon floating 122,000 feet above Wolfsburg, Germany. Each of the airplanes has a memory card as cargo, and the hope is that wherever the a plane lands, someone will fire up the memory card and then check in with where the plane was found. Plus, hey, free memory card!

The planes were launched on January 17, and so far, there are preliminary reports of landings in Australia, South Africa, India, Russia, Canada and even the U.S.


While the stunt is called "Project Space Planes," we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't point out that the launch height of about 122,000 feet isn't technically space. The generally accepted boundary between space and not-space is 62 miles (or 327,000 feet), or the altitude where you basically have to be traveling at orbital velocity to keep yourself aloft.

Even if these aren't really space planes, 23 miles up isn't bad for a bunch of little planes made out of paper, and if the reports of the planes making it as far as they did are confirmed, that's a pretty epic journey. Video of the launch below.


Project Space Planes, via New Scientist

NASA tests super-high-altitude balloon

Posted by Daniel Terdiman

NASA said Thursday that it has tested a balloon that ultimately will be able to carry one ton of research equipment to more than 100,000 feet.

(Credit: NASA)

NASA said Thursday it has performed a test of a prototype super pressure balloon that could carry as much as a ton of research equipment to heights of 110,000 feet or more for up to 100 days.

The balloon, which was launched on December 28, 2008, from McMurdo Station in Antarctica, is 7 million cubic feet and is said to be the largest single-cell, super-pressure, fully sealed balloon ever flown. When the project--which NASA is conducting in coordination with the National Science Foundation--is completed, the space agency should have a 22 million cubic foot balloon to work with.

NASA said that long-duration high-altitude balloon missions are far more cost-effective than satellites and that a chief benefit is that the instruments used can be easily retrieved and re-used.

The test flight made it to an altitude of 111,000 feet and has been at or near that height for 11 days so far.

"The flight tested the durability and functionality of the scientific balloon's unique pumpkin-shaped design and novel material," NASA said in a statement. "The material is a special lightweight polyethylene film, about the thickness of ordinary plastic food wrap."

Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and