PROJECT
SPACE PLANES
Send a message in a paper plane, from space!
We'll be keeping you up to date with project announcements both here and on !
Launch Pad
So, where are we so far? We’ve got Andy Chipling, an actual, real life Paper Plane Expert to help us design the planes (check him out at http://www.paperaircraft.org/) and we’ve got Robert Harrison, the leading voice on high altitude ballooning (you can see his projects at http://www.robertharrison.org/icarus/wordpress/about/). The exact launch site is still to be decided but keep uploading your data and who knows, it might end up anywhere in the world!
Joel visits long distance paper plane flight expert Andy Chipling in his shed, to discuss designs for the Space Planes…
Joel, Space Plane Enthusiast
Hello from Project Space Planes
Hi I’m Joel Veitch, and I’m running this project to launch paper aeroplanes from the edge of space. In the process, I’m learning from the masters about paper plane design and balloons- by the time we’re done I’m going to be a home-made-flying-things NINJA!
We’re aiming to launch in mid October assuming all goes well. I’m told the planes may go hundreds of miles if we’re lucky with the winds.
If we can get a plane to land East of the Volga I’ll be happy. I expect some will end up in the Siberian permafrost, where they will remain until they thaw out thousands of years from now to be discovered by whatever posthuman civilisation exists on Earth by then. They will plug the SD card in to their posthuman future SD card reader and hear our voices from the deep past, and a bond will be formed across the vastness of time thanks to our amazing space paper plane exploit!
If we don’t manage that, I’ll be happy with anything over 100 miles. But who knows how far we’ll get? The sky’s the limit! Literally! Because we’re going in to the sky! That’s a joke!