(Florida Today) CAPE CANAVERAL - A spacewalking Russian cosmonaut plans to hit a golf shot outside the International Space Station this summer as part of a publicity campaign that already has raised safety concerns.
Clad in a cumbersome spacesuit and anchored to a specially designed tee box, Pavel Vinogradov will hit a six-iron drive along side the station's Russian segment, taking great care not to hook the ball into the outpost.
Quiz question: why is it unlikely the ball would hook into the station?
9 comments:
Does it have something to do with that whole lack of gravity thing?
Is it true that things can not explode into a fireball in space because there is no oxygen?
Who cares, the on board laser cannon will vaporize it anyway.
Terrye,
Lack of air. A spinning object moving in air curves curves because the side moving against the air feels more pressure than the side moving with the air, a tennis ball with underspin rises, for instance. Tennis balls are fuzzy and golf balls are dimpled and I think this helps increase the effect. The details of what goes on can get pretty complicated.
Anybody know the spin on things that 'splains why those lil' beggars can fly?
Short answer:
Not me. Something to do with vortices, I believe. The wing's motion is also not just up and down. There was a good article some years back but I don't remember where, Scientific American maybe.
I got a better question - how is the ball going to stay on the tee and does he get a mulligan if it moves during his swing?
Knuck --- it's a physiological thing rather than a physics thing, I think. You "measure" weight by deformation of the flesh of the hand. The spinning ball deforms the flesh more because of the angular momentum.
Straight Dope covers the bumblebee question. Here's an easy way to think about it: imagine you're in a pool and treading water. If you just hold your arms out, you sink --- but if you swirl your arms back and forth, you're pushing against the water and that pushes you up. The bumblebee moves its wings back and forth more or less like you move your hands when treading water, rather than like an airplane's wings or a larger bird like a hawk, and "holds itself up".
I got a better question - how is the ball going to stay on the tee and does he get a mulligan if it moves during his swing?
Chewing gum.
How he'll get it out of his mouth and onto the tee I leave as an exercise for the reader.
Seneca,
I think the straight dope kinda blows that one. As Knuck points out, the actual aerodynmics is much more interesting than that.
Yeah, but there's a limit to what you can write in a newspaper column. Here's another article on using lasers to measure exactly what's going on.
Did you know there'ds a bumblebee FAQ ON THE WEB?
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