Last year the United States retired NASA’s space shuttle program, and shipped the remaining crafts out for display in sites around the country. To pay tribute to the end of the space shuttle era, Romanian high school student Raul Oaida strapped a Lego model space shuttle on a weather ballon and sent it towards the great beyond.

The launch took place on December 31st, with the toy shuttle reaching heights of about 115,000 feet. For comparison sake, a commercial airplane doesn’t usually go more than about 50,000 feet in the air. Oaida attached a GoPro Hero video camera to the balloon, which is responsible for the spectacular images above. Yup, that is the curve of the Earth you start seeing around the three minute mark.

The shuttle, which was equipped with a GPS device, landed unharmed a couple hours later in a German forest 150 miles away from the launch point. Oaida wasn’t able to convince Romanian air traffic control to allow him flight clearance, so he instead traveled to Germany, where they have less regulations about such things.

If you’re wondering, the first song on the video is ‘Welcome Home’ by Radical face, and the second is ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ by Richard Strauss.

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