Two inventive Canadian teenagers sent a Lego astronaut into near space, capturing amazing footage around 24 kilometers above sea level.
Schoolfriends Matthew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17, worked on the project for around four months before successfully launching their homemade spacecraft two weeks ago, the pair told the Toronto Star.
First they assembled a lightweight Styrofoam box, in which they placed three cameras programmed to take continuous shots and one wide-angle video camera. They bought a professional weather balloon online and $160 CAN worth of helium from a party shop in order to propel the device upwards.
They made a nylon parachute to help it return to Earth intact, and added a smartphone with a downloaded GPS app to allow them to track it.
The final touch was a Lego man, complete with handmade Canadian flag, which was super-glued to a gangplank facing the cameras.
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