(CNN) -- When Bertrand Piccard came up with his audacious plan to fly around the world in an aircraft powered only by the sun, he found that airplane manufacturers were skeptical such a plane could be built.





So who built the first model of "Solar Impulse," Piccard's $72-million solar-powered craft? A company that makes ships.





Piccard, who won the first transatlantic balloon race and commanded the first balloon flight around the world, told CNN, "Each time we asked the aeronautical industry to build that airplane, they told us it's impossible. We cannot make an airplane so light and so big. So who did we ask for some help? A boat manufacturer. They had no idea it was impossible, so they built the pieces in carbon fiber and now we have an airplane."





The plane is made by the Swiss company Decision SA, which made the America's Cup-winning Alinghi.





"People put limitations on their creativity, believing they have to rely on what they know and what they have done," Piccard says. He sees the Solar Impulse venture as a way to dramatically demonstrate that it's possible to make a sharp break with the past -- in this case, by showing that renewable energy can replace fossil fuel.





"A lot of industries say we have a society based on oil dependency, so let's continue. ... We know how to deal with oil. The result is General Motors and Chrysler going bankrupt. It's a typical example of people who did not make the turnaround early enough. If GM made engines with much lower fuel consumption, they would not have gone bankrupt."





"We have to get rid of certainties, habits, paradigms, common assumptions," Piccard says. "These are the limits to creativity."





Piccard, who is 51, spoke about his new venture at the TED Global conference in July 2009 and elaborated on it in a recent interview with CNN.com.





CNN: Why are you interested in attempting to fly around the world in a solar airplane?





Bertrand Piccard: My life and the life of my family has to do with exploration, with adventure. My grandfather was the first man in the stratosphere, and my father was the first to touch the deepest point in the ocean. ... For me adventure and exploration is something in the blood. So that's why I flew around the world in a balloon in 1999. ... It was considered to be impossible, I said, "Let's try it."





I succeeded after two failures, and I came to the middle of my life, thinking now that adventure has to go on, and a pioneering sprit has to go on, but how can the adventure be useful -- not a personal dream like flying around the world in a balloon -- but really useful?





I came up with idea of a solar airplane flying around the world with no fuel -- that would be a beautiful message in terms of technology, the energy of the future and the environment.





CNN: So what is the status of the effort right now?





Piccard: So the airplane is built. The first flight was achieved on the third of December and in the spring and summer this year, we're going to make the high-altitude flights and the cycle of [flying] one day, one night and one day.





We take off in the morning. We climb to 27,000 feet, and at the same time we load the batteries and run the engines on solar power only. Then we fly through the night on the batteries in order to reach the next sunrise and continue the following day. So this makes a complete cycle, with no fuel. When this will be achieved, we will build a second airplane that will be able to cross the Atlantic and fly around the world.





The first airplane has to prove that it's possible to fly a complete cycle, one day, one night, one day. ... This little airplane is not a Piper or Cessna with a couple of solar cells. It's a really high
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