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16-Year-Old Girl Sends MIT Admission Letter on a Jaunty Space Mission

What did you do with your college acceptance letters that you no doubt received at the tardy age of 18? Frame them? How utterly terrestrial of you. 16-year-old Erin King, answering the challenge to "hack" the cardboard tube that MIT sealed her Early Action admission letter in, sent it to near-space on a balloon, thus proving that all those model rockets I built with my dad when I was little were essentially kits for people MIT would consider "challenged."

[via BoingBoing]

Update: Erin King, for anyone who hasn't seen her correction in the comments, is actually 17, which, since age is just a number anyway, doesn't at all change how awesomely smart she is. Erin, please — I'm dying for a Mars mission and I think you're the one who can make it happen (no pressure or anything).

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