[FPSPACE] One tiny slice for mankind

[LARRY KLAES]

Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin hit a golf ball from the porch of the International 
Space Station (ISS) early on Thursday, making it the longest golf shot in 
history. However, the commercial stunt did not go completely as planned.

Tyurin hit the 3-gram ball with his gold-plated six-iron club at 0057 GMT 
(1957 EST Wednesday). But the ball did not follow its intended path. Tyurin 
was supposed to tap it one-handed into a "retrograde" orbit – in other words 
backwards relative to the space station’s direction of travel. That would 
ensure the ball would burn up quickly in the atmosphere and not hit the ISS 
or other spacecraft.

Instead, Tyurin shanked the ball, hitting it off the right side of the 
station's Zvezda service module (watch the NASA video). "All right, there it 
goes, and it went pretty far," Tyurin said after the ball flew away. "I can 
still see it as a little dot that's moving away from us."

Full article here:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10648-cosmonaut-shanks-longest-golf-shot-in-history.html?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=dn10648