Paper planes launched from space

[6] Materials designed for use in conventional reentry vehicles, including ceramic composites, withstand temperatures on the order of 2,200 °C (3,990 °F).

[5] As the Japanese/JAXA project was outlined, scientists would have had no way to track the airplanes or to predict where they might land; and as 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water, the craft would have anticipated a wet reunion with the planet.

Should one of the airplanes thus have made its way home, its journey would have helped to demonstrate the feasibility of slow-speed, low-friction atmospheric reentry.

Critics have suggested that even a successful demonstration would lack probative impact beyond the realm of diminutive sheets of folded paper—they can only fall.

On 28 October 2010, the PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space) project launched a paper plane at 90,000 ft (27,000 m) - 17 miles up - at a location about 120 miles (190 km) west of Madrid, Spain, setting a world record recognised by Guinness World Records.

[8] On 13 September 2014, a group of Civil Air Patrol cadets from Fox Valley Composite Squadron of the Illinois Wing announced that it had broken the Guinness World Record for the highest launch of a paper plane by releasing a substantial paper dart at 96,563 ft (29,432 m).