Longest Paper Airplane Flights Ever!
By Todd • Mar 12th, 2008 • Category: Bonus Happy Fun Time
Right now Japan is gearing up to create the most amazing flight of any paper airplane ever. It will glide for about 400km long, this of course makes my record of about 6 meters look like child’s play (it was, but that’s irrelevant!). The flight will be all the way from the International Space Station back down to Earth. Of course who knows if a little 8cm airplane is going to make it back or not, so JAXA’s plan is to dump out 100 of these babies. Personally I don’t think that is enough being as the recovery plan is to have each one say ‘If found, send to Japan.’
Take a moment to consider the potential survival rate for these planes. A large amount of them are going to be destroyed coming down, dropping into the ocean, or land on some desolate part of the earth never to be seen again. JAXA would be lucky to get one of these fibrous fliers back out of 1,000.
If I happen to find one, there is no way I’m sending it back. I’m going to put it in a glass case! I’ll make sure to send a note to Japan telling them about my new display. But wouldn’t that make for an amazing find, a paper spaceplane!
The main goal is to try to figure out what types of future space shuttles will be best for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. I’m not entirely sure how this part will help them accomplish the goal, but such is life.
Read more about the project at BBC News
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I can’t even think much on the technicals of this :P Cool tho, I like “paper spaceplane”!!
I saw this article on the Beeb a few weeks ago, and I thought the same as you. Why would I send a paper plane back to Japan?
Surely the 100 though has to be a miss print? It cant be that different making and releasing 1000 or even more paper planes considering it cost us Millions to get into space in the first place, unless they are throwing each one by hand :D
It must be, the extra benefit of 1000 must surly outweigh the cost. Of course the project is still looking for approval, so things could change.
Perhaps the don’t have enough volunteers (kids) to fold the paper into airplanes. Either that or like HardwareKid said, they’re throwing them by hand. Woulnd’t want the astronaut’s arm to get tired now :P