A 13-year-old girl named only as Stephanie is missing her astronaut father who is currently up in the ISS. He is away so much, she wanted to send a heartwarming message to dad to let him know how much he is missed and that she loves him.
NASA will not release the name of the astronaut involved (possibly because they don’t take kindly to commercial promotion).
However, Hyundai Motor heard of the girl’s plight and decided to help. Using their brand, “New Thinking” approach to connect families split by distance, they have now also set an extremely unusual world record, all the while sending a clear message to dad up in space.
According to PR News Wire , Stephanie, who lives in Houston, Texas, already had a hand-written letter that she wanted to send to her father up in space , and Hyundai Motor found a really great way for her to share her message to him.
Amazing: @Hyundai uses 11 cars in a desert to write a girl’s message to her astronaut dad. http://t.co/lsnUMeEwkf pic.twitter.com/nnIYeZCeGW
— Nigel Britto (@NigelBritto) April 14, 2015
What they did was to write Stephanie’s message to Dad in giant lettering in the desert in the form of tire tracks big enough for him to be able to read it from space. The message to dad clearly said “Steph [hearts] you” and her thrilled father captured a clear image all the way up in the ISS.
How did they do this? Apparently Hyundai called in experts from Europe, Korea and the United States to plan and deliver the ambitious project. They first had a brainstorming session to find the optimal location based on both geographical and meteorological factors and then set their hearts on Delamar Dry Lake in Nevada as the perfect spot.
Hyundai Motor sent 11 Genesis model cars out to Delamar Dry Lake and set them the task of recreating Stephanie’s message to dad covering an area more than one and a half times the size of New York City’s Central Park. They copied the teenager’s hand-writing almost perfectly.
Measuring 5.55 square kilometers, Stephanie’s message to dad in the desert has now been officially recognized by the Guinness World Records as the largest tire track image ever created.
A message, written by @Hyundai cars, from daughter to astronaut Dad seen from space. #ISS @GWR https://t.co/dJ0PbjkF8X pic.twitter.com/Ik3Gj6KAXA
— Epic Cosmos (@EpicCosmos) April 14, 2015
On the ISS, Stephanie’s father was naturally thrilled to receive the heartwarming message from his daughter and was happy to demonstrate just what an enormous achievement this mission had been. The unnamed astronaut captured some amazingly clear images too.
A video showing the creation of the amazing message to dad is included above. Uploaded on April 9, the video has already received almost 4.5 million views at the time of writing.
Anyone who wishes to send a message of their own , albeit on a slightly smaller scale, can do so via Hyundai Motor ‘s website.
[Image: Screengrab from YouTube video]
