Two Canadian teenagers have proved they’ve got the right stuff, after successfully launching a Lego man into space.
According to the Toronto Star, Matthew Ho and Asad Muhammed were inspired by a YouTube video of MIT students who sent a balloon to near space. After four and a half months of work, Ho and Muhammed completed a lightweight Styrofoam box carrying three point-and-shoot cameras, a wide-angle video camera, and a cellphone so they could track the project via GPS. They bought a professional weather balloon, filled it with helium from a party supply store and launched their ship, its little astronaut, and a Canadian flag.
The craft took about an hour to reach 80,000 feet, high enough to view the curvature of the earth, before the balloon popped and Mr. Legonaut headed home on a hand-sewn parachute. Nice work guys! Let’s just hope NASA’s budget never gets this miniature.
