For years, Google had a secret skunkworks lab called Google X, where the company dreamed up things like space elevators, robotics projects, and the infamous self-driving car. Google has a crazy amount of money, and its founders love big ideas. Google X explored secret “moon shot” ideas as ways to improve the human condition. As secret projects go, the ideas that made it into the press weren’t all that far-fetched: difficult, perhaps, but not unthinkable.

Google X Lab became a little less secret when it started making headlines. The rebranded X Company, like its predecessor, takes a radical approach to trying to make the world a better place. The company doesn’t release much information about its secret projects, but you can find some information about active, graduated, and discontinued projects on its website. A few older Google X projects give a glimpse into the work X does.

Loon is Google's idea to extend internet access to remote areas using weather balloons. Behind the scenes, this Google X project wants to place cell towers in the stratosphere to provide broader coverage.

According to the International Telecommunications Union, only one in two people have access to the internet, meaning that billions of people around the world are completely disconnected. With Loon, Google hopes to bring connectivity to rural areas and parts of the world that have suffered disasters that have left them without internet access.