<Kintaro> As 70% of the earth's surface is water, the professor's team estimates that a plane thrown from the space station would have only a 4-5% chance of hitting land.
<Kintaro> That is why they would want an astronaut to release around 100 of the planes.
<Kintaro> The team hopes that in future they might be able to develop a tracking device that can be fixed to the plane.
<Kintaro> But in the meantime there is just a low-tech alternative - to write messages in various languages on the paper asking people to send it back to Japan if they find it.
<alix> why don't they just aim for japan
<alix> plus why do they want to chuck planes at the earth in the hope that they'll hit something solid
<alix> that'll end in tears