The Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) project was a privately organized endeavour undertaken by various staff members of the British information technology website The Register to design, build, test, and launch a lightweight aerospace vehicle, constructed mostly of paper and similar structural materials, into the mid-stratosphere and recover it intact.
On 28 October 2010, an aircraft was successfully launched at 90,000 ft (27,000 m)—17 miles up—setting a then world record for "highest altitude paper plane launch" recognised by Guinness World Records at a location about 120 miles (190 km) west of Madrid, Spain.
Lester Haines, special projects editor ("Iberian Bureau") at The Register, as part of his reporting on CU Spaceflight's Nova 1 mission[6] in 2006,[7] and at the behest of 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.
[9] As of 2011,[update] The Register was working on PARIS' successor, named LOHAN (short for "Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator"), a balloon-launched rocket-powered aircraft.
[10] 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.