Scientists Create Real-Life 'Up' Flying Balloon House

It's quickly becoming an iconic scene from the animated movie "Up." The old man, heartbroken, creates a flying house using only helium balloons to escape his pain. Now, a team of scientists have succeeded in successfully recreating that scene using hundreds of real helium balloons and a mock-up of the little yellow house seen in the movie.

First, the original scene:

Now the successful recreation:

TG Daily explains:

"We've discovered, really, that it's probably close to impossible to actually fly a real house - but what you can do, as we've done here, is actually fly a lightweight house and actually fly it safely with people on board," says the team.

The project was carried out by a team which included the National Geographic Channel and movie creator Pixar, along with two balloon pilots, engineers, scientists and volunteers.

The house was launched on Saturday from a private airfield in Los Angeles. It was hoisted into the sky by more than 300 weather balloons, each nearly three meters tall and holding an entire tank of helium. It was the largest cluster balloon flight ever.

The house flew for almost an hour, reaching an altitude of over 3,000 meters, and made a safe landing.

The project is part of an upcoming fall National Geographic series, "How Hard Can it Be?"