New Zealand has reached for the sky, backing Google's extraordinary plan to encircle the Earth with helium-filled balloons beaming internet access to billions.
Google's secretive research team Google X launched the aptly named Project Loon, sending a few dozen balloons aloft, with Prime Minister John Key in Christchurch yesterday.
"I'm absolutely amazed," said Professor Jean Fleming from Otago University's Centre for Science Communication. "I'm boggled by the audacity of it, in a good way."

 Fleming said most people would welcome Project Loon, although some would be concerned about possible abuses of the technology. "There'll be a whole lot of people asking questions about surveillance."
Fleming said Christchurch's experience with the 2011 earthquake made it a fitting place to launch the project, which Google says should benefit disaster-struck regions.

 Project Loon's creative team included New Zealander Dr Craig Nevill-Manning, who studied computer science at the universities of Canterbury and Waikato. He is now Google's engineering director and was pivotal in creating Google Maps. He lives in New York but visits New Zealand often and spent last summer on Waiheke.
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