Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to take the art of origami paper folding to outer space, launching a paper plane from the International Space Station to Earth to learn about future spacecraft design.
The agency this week approved four space experiments, including the paper plane project, with up to 90 million yen earmarked for studies over three years, agency official Hidehiro Akashi said Thursday.
Prototype paper planes, folded in the shape of a U.S. space shuttle, survived a test in a hypersonic wind tunnel in late January at a University of Tokyo laboratory.
The prototypes, some seven centimeters long and five centimeters wide, went through Mach-7 speeds and temperatures up to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the Japan Origami Airplane Association which initiated the project.
The conditions were close to what paper planes, which will be drawn back to Earth by gravity, could confront upon re-entering the atmosphere from space, the association said on its website.
The project got a boost after the association found paper that was chemically treated to be extremely heat resistant.
"Even after the chemical treatment, paper remains paper and it can be used for origami," said Shinji Suzuki, a professor at the University of Tokyo's department of aeronautics and astronautics who cooperated in the project.
"The paper plane's return from space will give us tips about designing new spacecrafts," he said.
Japan has an increasingly ambitious space program. The space shuttle Endeavour returned Thursday Tokyo time after beginning to set up Japan's first space laboratory.
"The biggest problem is that we cannot predict where the plane will touch down if it manages to return. That's because the plane will be blown away by wind after entering the troposphere," Suzuki said.
"We are considering attaching a tiny transmitter. But if the paper plane gets heavier, it can't escape heating up due to air resistance," he said.
"In its initial flight, we may write on the paper of the plane in different languages, 'please let us know when you find this.'"
© AFP
5 Comments
Login to comment
franz75
I bet it will fall in the sea and washed on japanese shore with other plastic bags in say... 30 years like other school projects. Japanese crane origamis will do the trick too.
cxu
will experience up to 200 degrees Celsius...are they sure of that?
SimondB
What can you say? 90 million yen to make paper planes. I really did miss my calling.
Pukey2
Forget the origami. I'm just waiting for the natto experiment.
flammenwerfer
paper planes capable of re-entering the atmosphere and doing mach 7...reminds of the famous Seinfeld stand up routine about watermelon seeds
I'm very impressed with this seedless watermelon product that they have for us. They've done it. We now have seedless watermelon. Pretty amazing. What are they planting to grow the seedless watermelon, I wonder? The melons aren't humping', are they? They must be planting something. How does this work? And what kind of scientists do this type of work? I read this thing was 15 years in development. In the laboratories with gene splicing or, you know, whatever they do there... I mean, other scientists are working on AIDS, cancer, heart disease. These guys are going: "No, I'm going to devote myself to melon." "I think that's much more important." "Sure thousands are dying needlessly but this..(spit). that's gotta stop."
substitute hypersonic paper plane with seed and thats about it...