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Paper Airplane Touches Edge of Space, Glides Back

Posted by timothy on from the face-of-god-next-step dept.

itwbennett writes "Brits Steve Daniels, John Oates and Lester Haines just became the envy of geeks the world over. The trio 'built a one-wing glider from paper, lofted it to the edge of space at 90,000 feet with a helium balloon, and posted sound and video recordings from the plane as it glided safely back to the ground,' writes blogger Kevin Fogarty. The Register newspaper sponsored the stunt and reported each step of the process. And British defense-contractor Qinetiq supplied the cameras and testing chambers, says Fogarty."

3 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Re:wtf by causality · · Score: 3, Informative

    When you said "the edge of space" I thought you meant the border of the universe, so I was all WTF.

    Apparently a little buoyancy goes a long way.

    --
    It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
  2. Re:Newspaper? by mmontour · · Score: 3, Informative

    Do none of these people honestly know that The Register is one long lived, entertaining, and generally informative tech web site, and that it was the creator of the ever popular and true to life adventures of BOFH?

    I agree with most of that, but the BOFH stories were around long before El Reg started publishing them.

  3. Re:DUDE! by Sulphur · · Score: 3, Informative

    Balloons and gliders predate powered flight.

    Alexander de Seversky proposed an ionic drive that would need most of that altitude to work.

    http://www.rexresearch.com/desev/desev.htm