ISS astronauts plan summer Olympics in space
With an international group gathered at the ISS, it shouldn’t be surprising they’d want to partake in some Olympic rivalry of their own, and the astronauts joining the team only a week before the games begin – Sunita Williams of NASA, Akihiko Hoshide of Japan and Yuri Malenchenko of Russia – are rarin’ to go.
“Something unique about our increment is we have a very huge sports event during our increment, so what we’re talking about amongst ourselves is, why don’t we do some kind of sports event onboard the station too?” Hoshide told reporters during a NASA preview the mission. “We’re just tossing around ideas right now, what kind of sport event we can do. That’s something I’m looking forward to.”
(We’re thinking synchronized swimming and diving events would go over best considering the conditions.)
They won’t be the first group to phone home with Olympic hijinks of their own, though, since the ISS astronauts during the 2010 Olympics tried their hand at skiing, zero-G luge and weightless figure skating. As Mission Control commented when they beamed that footage back home:
“You are officially the only folks who are able to get more hang time than Shaun White.”
Full story at Space.com.
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Space luge is totally cancelled. And all other events are pen-ding.