The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: December 7, 2008

Official News page 8


REAL LIFE NEWS: BEARS... IN... SPAAAAAACE!

by Hazed

One small step for bears, but a giant leap for teddy-kind... four teddy bears have recently become astronauts, being blasted to the edge of space. They were launched 30,000 feet into the sky as part of a project by the University of Cambridge, UK, which linked up with a local school to get kids interested in space.

A helium balloon was used to launch the bears on a three hour flight which started at Cambridge and took the intrepid furry spacebears to the edge of space before being safely returned to Earth. During their heroic journey, the bears endured temperatures of minus 53 degrees. Presumably their fur helped to keep them warm!

Students tracked the bears' progress using GPS and then collected them from their landing spot, just north of Ipswich.

The project's intention was to "engage local schoolchildren in science and engineering". Young pupils made spacesuits for the bears, which were bought specially for the experiment.

See some pictures of the spacebears here.


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