CANADA Lego Man in Space - YouTube

A video posted on YouTube shows the amazing voyage of a Lego man sent into space on a homemade spacecraft by two Toronto students.

Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both 17, used a weather balloon ordered online and a makeshift Styrofoam spacecraft to send the plastic astronaut 15 miles into the stratosphere, reports said.

Their high school principal Lecourgos Papathanasakis confirmed the "amazing voyage" but neither of the teens was immediately available for comment.

The accelerated video clip shows highlights of the Lego man during his 97-minute odyssey.

Ultimately, he is seen holding a Canadian flag with the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space in the background.

Canadian media said the pair had fitted a box tethered to the balloon with four cameras and a cellphone enabled with a GPS (global positioning system) device to capture the journey.

They then added a home-made nylon parachute, using Asad's mother's sewing machine, so the Lego man would return to Earth safely.

The balloon was filled with helium purchased from a party supply store.

The whole enterprise cost less than £320.

The duo then consulted a website to calculate the estimated landing spot of the weather balloon based on launch coordinates, prevailing winds and other data before launching it from a soccer pitch in nearby Newmarket, Ontario.

At four miles in altitude, the balloon travelled out of cell phone range and the GPS signal also cut out, so they went home and waited until Ho's iPad beeped.

The Lego man had called home. It had re-entered the atmosphere, picked up the cell signal again and touched down in a field 75 miles from the launch point.

Michael Reid, an astrophysicist at the University of Toronto, said what Ho and Muhammad were able to achieve is extraordinary.

"There are people that are doing it, but I haven't seen many examples of 17-year-old kids doing it," Reid said. "It's a pretty impressive accomplishment."

SUMPAC: Human-powered flight recreated for 50th anniversary

A flight has taken place at a Hampshire airfield to mark the 50th anniversary of the UK's first human-powered flight to attempt to gain the Kremer Prize.

On 9 November, 1961, gliding instructor Derek Piggott took off from Lasham Airfield in a pedal-powered aircraft.

Flying Southampton University's Man Powered Aircraft, (SUMPAC) he covered a distance of 64m (210ft) and climbed to a height of 1.8m (6ft).

With the SUMPAC now a museum exhibit, the commemorative flight took place in human-powered aircraft, Airglow.

Organised by members of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Human Powered Flight Group, pilot Robin Kraike made the flight early on Saturday.

Mr Kraike who flew the plane for about 1 mile (1.6km) said: "It's like doing a 800 metre sprint."

"It's a very busy place in the cockpit - you have to divide your body into two halves, the top part doing the delicate part of flying the plane and the bottom half you're going like the clappers to deliver the power."

Now aged 88, SUMPAC's former test pilot, Derek Piggott MBE, watched the commemorative flight from the airfield.

He recalled meeting the students who designed and built the original single-seat nylon covered craft which spanned 24.4m (80ft) 50 years ago.

The SUMPAC was powered using pedals and chains to drive a 2.4m (8ft) propeller

He said: "It all started with the students coming across to Lasham trying to find somewhere to fly their aeroplane. I was interested immediately, so we organised it."

He built up his fitness to power the pedal aircraft by running around the airfield.

"I wasn't a cyclist, so I was very lucky to get all the flying in it, we were going to train an Olympic cyclist to fly it but we never managed to teach him to fly."

Following a crash in 1963, the fragile SUMPAC was retired from flying and placed on display at Southampton's Solent Sky Museum.

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