Japanese Astronaut Says Boomerang Works in Space

Japanese Astronaut Takao Doi wanted to see whether the boomerang would work the same in space as it does on Earth. Perhaps surprising, tests on the International Space Station have confirmed it flies back to the thrower, just like on Earth.

Before he flew on the U.S. shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station on March 11, astronaut Takao Doi told the press he wanted to test the boomerang in space. The idea came to him by request from his friend Yashuhiro Togai, a world boomerang champion. Doi has completed the test as promised and claims the boomerang worked well at the International Space Station. A spokeswoman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency told the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun that astronaut Takao Doi threw a boomerang and watched it come back. Takao Doi told his wife in a chat from space that he was very surprised when the boomerang came back. He said it flies the same way it does on Earth. There is no video available for this experiment as of yet, but NASA said it will release something later. Doi and his crew also successfully delivered the first piece of a Japanese laboratory to the International Space Station. This experiment might look trivial, but it's exciting for scientists who want to understand the physics involved in the boomerang flight path in space to incorporate it in their models.