Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin hit a golf ball outside the space station yesterday

The sporting event was sponsored by a manufacturer of golf clubs from Canada, which contain metals developed for the space program. It is not known how much the company paid the Russian space agency for the advertisement * By the way, the ball deviated from its course and will burn up in the atmosphere  

 For the video describing the hit

Washington - Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin succeeded on Wednesday, albeit slightly late, in launching an extremely light golf ball into his course, although he missed his target. The special thing about the golf course is that the playing field was in space - during the spacewalk of the two astronauts on the International Space Station. Tyurin hit the ball about 77 minutes after the allotted time due to the need to repair an overheated space suit and due to a jammed exit hatch. 

Tyurin used a gold-plated racket and his American space station crewmate carried the golf equipment and safety, Tyurin hit the ball in a sort of glancing blow outside the International Space Station, about 360 kilometers above the northwest Pacific Ocean. The ball, which deviated a little to the right of its trajectory, splashed out of the opening where the malfunction that occurred caused the space stroke to be shortened.

"It looks like a point moving away from us," said the cosmonaut

How far did the ball go?

As with any story about hitting a golf ball, it depends on who you're talking to.

This shot has reached a distance of 1 billion miles, or will reach it when the ball falls into the Earth's atmosphere at the end of two years - says Natalia Hearn, president of Element 21 Golf. This company paid the Russian space agency amounts that they are not interested in disclosing for the golf stunt to promote its new golf club, which contains, among other things, metals that are derivatives of materials developed for the space program.

This is quite an exaggeration, says NASA's spacewalk manager, Holly Readings. According to her, NASA's calculations show that the ball will survive in space for 2-3 days at most and will not be able to travel such a distance. However, no one can estimate when the ball will burn up in the atmosphere, but just in case, the weight of the ball was only 3 grams, about 1/15 of the weight of a regular golf ball. Its weight was reduced to the minimum possibility that it could actually damage spacecraft or satellites.

Like many golfers, the cosmonaut wasted a few minutes trying to reach a comfortable hitting position, but unlike his earthly counterparts, he sometimes stood on his head. He was also attached to the space station and supported by astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria. With the help of instructions from the control center in Moscow on how to place the ball on the mound, the veteran cosmonaut Tyurin succeeded, but even the novice golfer, who lingered outside the station for over an hour, did not like this advice. "The ball is the last important thing," said the Russian cosmonaut, "I am the one who is tasked with positioning accordingly"

The commentator of the spacewalk, Rob Nevias, did not broadcast in the usual quiet tones that characterize the descriptions of the golf games, he commented that Tiorin veered to the right. Tiorin, angry, preferred not to try the planned second or third strike.

For a few minutes it looked like Tyorin might miss his punch time entirely when his spacesuit overheated and the station door jammed. Tyurin told his flight controllers in Moscow that his spacesuit may have been overheated due to an overly coiled cooling pipe. Finally, the suit began to cool and Tyurin returned to his mission. Nevertheless, the space inspectors decided to reduce the spacewalk time from 6 hours to 5 hours and 38 minutes. Water later pooled in the suit and began to blur his vision.

After Tiorin's golf swing, Tiorin and Lopez-Alegria installed a science experiment designed to remain in space conditions, and also assembled one antenna on the space station.

However, the spacewalkers were not successful in their attempt to remove another antenna from the vehicle that got stuck on the unmanned supply vehicle anchored in one of the station's entrances. Despite several attempts that were interrupted by grumbling. Russian engineers thought that something might have frozen in the antenna mechanism, and they had trouble closing that lid when it came time to end the spacewalk.

Tyurin's hit was not the first in space. During the Apollo 14 mission in 1971, astronaut Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the lunar surface.