Paper Airplane Reentry
If there was ever any doubt about the importance of the International Space Station, it should be put to rest now, as it is to be used as launching platform for the first paper airplanes to perform atmospheric reentry. As published in this Science article, the Japan Origami Plane Association and the University of Tokyo hope to launch 100 folded paper airplanes, constructed from a heat-resistant paper, from the station to descend to earth with multi-lingual messages providing instructions on how to return any that are found. A 7cm long model was tested in a high-speed wind tunnel and shown to survive airspeeds of Mach 7!
If we assume all 100 planes survive reentry, and the earth is 70% covered by water, then 30 planes should land on dry land. Now the question is, how much of that land is actually populated such that there is any hope of finding the plane? Even in populated areas, I’d predict it is no better than 50/50 chances that somebody actually picks it up. Still, it would be cool. They have not yet, it seems, gotten a go ahead from NASA for this little experiment. But, what could it hurt? It can’t cost much to launch some paper airplanes up along with a shuttle!
March 28th, 2008 at 7:02 am
This is ridiculously awesome!! Finally, something good that comes out of the space station!