By Lara Crigger| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Jan, 29, 2007
Look there, in the Texas sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ... a banana?
In an art installation sure to launch a thousand UFO conspiracies, Montreal artist César Saez plans to send a 1,000-foot helium blimp in the shape of a banana into low Earth orbit over the Lone Star State.
If everything goes right, the fruity dirigible, known as the Geostationary Banana Over Texas, should launch in August 2008.
The astrofruit is an artistic commentary on the absurdity of American politics -- especially Texan-style kookiness, says Saez."I see Texas like a crossroads of important social and cultural happenings in the states and in the world," he says.
He estimates the project will cost $1 million, and so far he's raised one-eighth of that, including a $15,000 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Technically, Saez's "geostationary banana" is misnamed, as the blimp will neither circle the equator nor reach an altitude of 22,236 miles. Instead, it will orbit in near space, meandering the stratosphere at 100,000 to 160,000 feet above the Earth's surface.
![](http://www.wired.com/ly/wired/news/images/thumb/spacebanana1_t.gif)
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Ground observers should be able to spot the airship's curved shape with the naked eye; Saez estimates the banana will appear 10 percent to 20 percent the size of the moon.
More:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/art/0,72550-0.html?tw=rss.index