Uplifting messages to the world travel into the stratosphere and back again

World View and TMC for Children cooked up a holiday project for kids in Southern Arizona: Have the children write letters to the world expressing their hopes and dreams, then send those messages aloft in a balloon to travel into the stratosphere and back.

Once the messages were recovered after their trip to the edge of the atmosphere, astronaut Ron Garan would sign each letter to certify that it had been soared above Earth, and World View would then mail the letters back to the children.

Neat idea!

Almost four hundred letters were sent to World View for the launch, exceeding everyone's projections. Those letters were launched on Saturday morning, December 10, 2016 just west of Tucson, Arizona.

This video depicts the launch.

I want to thank World View and TMC for Children for bringing this idea to life, and Andrew Antonio for inviting me to attend the balloon launch.