The Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) project was a privately organized endeavour undertaken by various staff members of the British

information technology Information technology (IT) is a set of related fields within information and communications technology (ICT), that encompass computer systems, software, programming languages, data processing, data and information processing, and storage. Inf ...

website ''

The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...

'' to design, build, test, and launch a lightweight

aerospace Aerospace is a term used to collectively refer to the atmosphere and outer space. Aerospace activity is very diverse, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. Aerospace engineering consists of aeronautics and astron ...

vehicle, constructed mostly of

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

and similar structural materials, into the mid-

stratosphere The stratosphere () is the second-lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is composed of stratified temperature zones, with the warmer layers of air located higher ...

and recover it intact. On 28 October 2010, an aircraft was successfully launched at —17 miles up—setting a then world record for "highest altitude paper plane launch" recognised by

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

at a location about west of

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Project

Staffers at ''The Register'', inspired by the CU Spaceflight ''Nova 1'' project, formally announced their intention to initiate a project of their own on 30 July 2009. The aircraft's name was selected by a

poll Poll, polled, or polling may refer to: Forms of voting and counting * Poll, a formal election ** Election verification exit poll, a survey taken to verify election counts ** Polling, voting to make decisions or determine opinions ** Polling pla ...

of the readers of ''The Register''. was subsequently named ''Vulture 1'' (a reference to ''The Register'' own nickname "Vulture Central"). The use of the word "space" in the project's name refers to "

near space Near space is the upper region of the Earth's atmosphere between airspace and outer space. It is sometimes referred to as the " edge of space". There is no legal definition for this extent, but typically this is the altitude range from . Rang ...

", not " outer space", since it was not planned for the vehicle to ascend to an altitude above the

Kármán line The Kármán line (or von Kármán line ) is a conventional definition of the Outer space#Boundary, edge of space; it is widely but not universally accepted. The international record-keeping body Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, FAI ( ...

(the boundary of outer space, defined by the

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...

as above the earth's surface ); it is nevertheless a project that is closely related to the concept of

private spaceflight Private spaceflight is any spaceflight development that is not conducted by a government agency, such as NASA or ESA. During the early decades of the Space Age, the government space agencies of the Soviet Union and United States pionee ...

. Lester Haines, special projects editor (" Iberian Bureau") at ''The Register'', as part of his reporting on CU Spaceflight's ''Nova 1'' mission in 2006, and at the behest o
Nova
team member Carl Morland, mused that "''El Reg'' might like to contribute something" as a payload to a future high-altitude balloon project, and invited the online magazine's readership to make suggestions as to what kind of payload package should be designed and built. After languishing for a few years in

limbo The unofficial term Limbo (, or , referring to the edge of Hell) is the afterlife condition in medieval Catholic theology, of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the Damned. However, it has become the gene ...

, the balloon payload project was resurrected in July 2009 and called ''PARIS'', as a

backronym A backronym is an acronym formed from an already existing word by expanding its letters into the words of a phrase. Backronyms may be invented with either serious or humorous intent, or they may be a type of false etymology or folk etymology. The ...

from ''Paper Aircraft Released Into Space'' after

Paris Hilton Paris Whitney Hilton (born February 17, 1981) is an American media personality, businesswoman, and socialite. Hilton was born in New York City and raised there partially; shuttling between Los Angeles and New York City; she is a great-grandda ...

, the payload type having been suggested by readers in 2006. The paper plane was successfully launched on 28 October 2010.

LOHAN

''The Register'' was working on PARIS' successor, named LOHAN (short for "Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator"), a balloon-launched rocket-powered aircraft. However, Lester Haines died in 2016 of a heart attack while LOHAN was still awaiting FAA approval, and as of 2023 ''The Register'' has yet to publish anything more about it.

References

{{Reflist Paper planes Spaceflight

Project

LOHAN

See also

References