Yes, Boomerangs Return Even in Space

If you are asking yourself the same question that Yasuhiro Togai posed a couple of years ago, then you should probably know that the answer is 'Yes! Boomerangs can fly in space just as well as they do back here on Earth.' Yasuhiro Togai is a Japanese world boomerang champion, and just before the space shuttle Endeavor launched into space on March 11, Togai asked his compatriot astronaut Takao Doi to conduct an unprecedented experiment, in order to establish whether boomerangs would fly or not in a weightless environment.

Doi flew towards the International Space Station as part of a crew member of the space mission STS 123, which was scheduled to deliver the first component of the Japanese space laboratory Kibo and the Canadian maintenance robot Dextre.

"Mr. Doi said he will personally carry a paper boomerang for the upcoming mission and we presume he will try it when he has spare time," said an official of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Togai supplied Doi with a couple of paper boomerangs and, on March 18 during spare time, he resumed his unusual experiment. To his surprise, the experiment worked. Boomerangs can fly in the same way in space as they do on Earth! "I was very surprised and moved to see that it flew the same way it does on Earth," said Doi, according to the Mainichi Shimbun daily. Doi admitted to having thought that the influence of gravity would have had more effect on the movement of the paper boomerang.

Togai said before the experiment that he expected the boomerang to fly away without returning to the thrower. As Doi later demonstrated, both were wrong. The media reports that the 53-year-old astronaut took lessons on how to throw a boomerang from the 2006 world boomerang champion and compatriot, Yasuhiro Togai.

JAXA said in a press statement that a videotape of the experiment would be released soon. Doi will return to Earth on the 26th of March with the space shuttle Endeavor.



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