Japanese Space Boomerang
by friver ~ May 2nd, 2008. Filed under: Strange People News, Strange Space News.
It all began with a curious champion.
World boomerang champion Yasuhiro Togai wanted to know if boomerangs worked in outer space, so he gave a bunch of paper boomerangs to Takao Doi, an astronaut with the Japanese equivalent of NASA.
Doi took the paper boomerangs with him on his next trip to the International Space Station and tried them out there.
They worked perfectly.
That’s because boomerangs rely on air resistance, not gravity, to fly and return to the thrower.
Takao Doi, an astronaut with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, did the experiment while visiting the space station as part of NASA’s latest space shuttle mission, which is scheduled to land on Wednesday.
The boomerang behaved no differently than on Earth, flying back to Doi after he threw it. “It flew just like on Earth, and I was really surprised and impressed,” Doi told his wife in a chat from space, according to Japan’s Mainichi Daily News.
World boomerang champion Yasuhiro Togai gave the paper boomerang to Doi and asked him to try throwing it in space. “It was a gift,” JAXA spokesperson Kumiko Tanabe told New Scientist. Togai also gave Doi pointers on how to throw it.
