Paper Airplane Touches Edge of Space, Glides Back

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."

Re:wtf

[causality]

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.

Re:Ok we get it already

[sznupi]

A balloon has some fundamental limitations, a...ceiling. To which your average helium balloon is quite close and overcoming it requires pretty high tech [isas.jaxa.jp]. Once you get the hang of proper handling (ever more difficult with higher tech), what limits you is the (lack of) atmosphere and slight manufacturing faults of the balloon.

That said - yes, it's fun. Yes, we don't need to see it reported all the time.

Re:Newspaper?

[mmontour]

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.

Re:Newspaper?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, correct me if I'm wrong, but i'm pretty sure BOFH was around long before the Register.
If anything they just gave Simon a new place to post them.
http://www.plig.net/bofh/history.html

I'd highly recommend you read the older ones if you haven't. A lot of people think the register bofh's is "all she wrote"

Which i think they're actually paying Datamation Magazine for the digital licensing (or maybe they've bought the rights outright?)

Re:DUDE!

[Sulphur]

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 [rexresearch.com]

Re:Jet streams?

[michelcolman]

Actually the transition is not that gentle. I'm a pilot, and we usually avoid flying near the edge of a jet stream. Not because it's dangerous or anything, just a bit uncomfortable. It won't damage a balloon, but the glider hanging underneath it will probably dangle left and right quite a bit.

It's not a paper airplane

[stevegee58]

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but it has an airframe and the skin is some kind of foil. It's not a paper airplane by any reasonable interpretation.