A small fold of paper, a giant leap for origami

The art of crafting the ultimate paper aeroplane has long been a source of fierce competition among schoolboys in the classroom. Now though, the pastime is being taken up in a rather bigger arena: outer space.

Last night the news that had been merely the stuff of dreams for schoolchildren became an unlikely reality as Japan announced its aeronautical engineers are to launch a squadron of origami planes from the International Space Station, 250 miles from this planet.

The spectacular show of space creativity will see a Japanese astronaut asked to release around 100 of the planes, measuring around 20cm (8in) long and made of heat-resistant paper treated with silicon to survive the descent to Earth.

In a move that will bring new meaning to the term the "final frontier", the planes are expected to "glide" at around 17,000 mph, covering more than three million miles before floating through the Earth's atmosphere. Scientists say that although the planes are statistically likely to end up in the sea, anyone who finds a successfully landed creation may find a message written inside.

Tests have been carried out by Shinji Suzuki, a professor of aerospace engineering at Tokyo University, which show the planes can withstand the extreme heat and speeds they will face."Paper planes are extremely light so they slow down when the air is thin and can gradually descend," he said. "The technology from paper planes could be applied in the development of new transport craft."

He added: "It's going to be the space version of a message in a bottle."

Some scientists, however, dismissed the plan as a joke. "It's not 1 April, is it? It's got to come down at about 17,000mph because the space station is orbiting the Earth at that speed," said Professor Colin Pillinger, the Open University scientist responsible for the Beagle 2 Mars lander project which failed. "When it re-enters the atmosphere it is going to be going pretty fast and 17,000mph is a lot of speed to dissipate. That means there will be a lot of heating. I don't see how it works. It would have to come down so very gradually, it would have to de-orbit over many, many orbits."

The general secretary of the British Origami Society, Mark Bolitho, said: "It will be the longest flight of a paper airplane ever, by virtue of being in space, I suspect."

The designs are not dissimilar to a US space shuttle in design, crafted to travel through space without disintegrating. But the planes – which Tokyo hopes will pave the way for lighter materials to be used for space aircraft – will weigh only 30g (1oz).