'Mach 20' paper airplane could launch from Space Station
http://www.discoverychannel.ca/reports/article.aspx?aid=6514
It would be the farthest such flight by a long shot, and the most difficult. But a Japanese astronautics engineer is determined to throw a paper airplane from Earth orbit.
University of Tokyo Professor Shinji Suzuki is working with Japanese origami experts to launch a specially-designed origami aircraft from the International Space Station and return it to Earth, unassisted.
...
During last week's preliminary trials, Suzuki successfully proved a smaller prototype paper airplane's ability to withstand such heat: Using a University of Tokyo wind tunnel facility (pictured below), Suzuki exposed an 8-centimetre version of the plane to Mach 7 speeds for ten seconds (pictured above), with temperatures reaching between 200 and 300 degrees Celsius.
There's a wind tunnel vid of this at the article too.
http://www.ctvdigital.com/discovery/reports/paper-airplane.wmv
It would be the farthest such flight by a long shot, and the most difficult. But a Japanese astronautics engineer is determined to throw a paper airplane from Earth orbit.
University of Tokyo Professor Shinji Suzuki is working with Japanese origami experts to launch a specially-designed origami aircraft from the International Space Station and return it to Earth, unassisted.
...
During last week's preliminary trials, Suzuki successfully proved a smaller prototype paper airplane's ability to withstand such heat: Using a University of Tokyo wind tunnel facility (pictured below), Suzuki exposed an 8-centimetre version of the plane to Mach 7 speeds for ten seconds (pictured above), with temperatures reaching between 200 and 300 degrees Celsius.
There's a wind tunnel vid of this at the article too.
http://www.ctvdigital.com/discovery/reports/paper-airplane.wmv
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