Review
"Project Hail Mary" is the best film of the year for me
by Luca Fontana
Record for Lego spaceship: "Hail Mary" floats at an altitude of 35 kilometres
24.4.2026
Translation: machine translated
To mark the cinema release of "The Astronaut - Project Hail Mary", Lego and Sony Pictures sent a model of the "Hail Mary" spaceship almost 35 kilometres into the air. The spectacular feat secured the set an official entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
It's official: no other Lego set has reached such great heights and then been collected again like the film spaceship «Hail Mary». The Lego icon set «The Astronaut» (#11389) ascended to an altitude of 34,988 metres on 20 March with the help of a modified weather balloon.
This means that the spaceship does not cover as great a distance as the original in the film «The Astronaut - Project Hail Mary», which has been showing in cinemas since the end of March. But it was certainly enough for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for «the highest flight of a Lego set with recovery».
The balloon with the toy spaceship attached to a specially constructed platform hovered far above the ground for more than eight hours. Then the balloon burst as planned and the platform slid back to the ground on a parachute. There, thanks to GPS tracking, the set was collected again by employees of the British company Sent into Space.
Source: Sony Pictures UK
The company offers marketing stunts like this one. The objects ascending with weather balloons reach heights of up to 38 kilometres above the earth. Among other things, Oreo biscuits and a Samsonite suitcase have already travelled into space. Strictly speaking, Sent into Space is exaggerating a little with «Space» (English: «Space»): according to a frequently used definition, we only speak of space at an altitude of more than 100 kilometres.
However, the altitude reached by the balloons equipped with cameras is sufficient to produce impressive images of objects in front of planet Earth. And this was also achieved during the flight of the Lego spaceship. The set of 830 pieces, consisting of the film spaceship, an astronaut and an alien figure, rotated in front of a beautiful backdrop.
Lego, Sony Pictures and the directors of «The Astronaut», Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, are behind the campaign. The two received the official Guinness World Records certificate on 13 April.
The most exciting question for Lego fans remains unanswered after the spaceship flight: Was the set still intact after landing or did the team have to collect 830 individual parts? Now in stock, the «Hail Mary» is unfortunately not yet available.
By the way, another object had already made it into space» a week earlier in connection with the film «: an IMAX trailer for «The Astronaut» was played on a display 31 kilometres above the ground, which also earned it an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
Header image: Sony Pictures
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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