This summer, a Russian cosmonaut is scheduled to use a gold-plated 6-iron to hit a gold-plated golf ball into space from the International Space Station. The ball is expected to travel 2.1 billion miles in Earth orbit, before burning up on re-entry after 2 to 4 years. That's if the ball doesn't get shanked into a solar panel or collide with something else during its epic flight.
The stunt was conceived of by a golf company, as a way to get publicity for its clubs. The company used an undisclosed amount of cash to induce the Russians to cooperate. It is unclear (to me, anyway) whether NASA can or will object.
This summer, a Russian cosmonaut is scheduled to use a gold-plated 6-iron to hit a gold-plated golf ball into space from the International Space Station. The ball is expected to travel 2.1 billion miles in Earth orbit, before burning up on re-entry after 2 to 4 years. That's if the ball doesn't get shanked into a solar panel or collide with something else during its epic flight.
The stunt was conceived of by a golf company, as a way to get publicity for its clubs. The company used an undisclosed amount of cash to induce the Russians to cooperate. It is unclear (to me, anyway) whether NASA can or will object.
How will they ever know if it re-enters the atmosphere? The ball will burn up on reentry, assuming it ever makes it back. One of the things that has always amazed me about space is the speed at which objects travel. For example the space shuttle travels in excess of 23,000 miles per hour while in space. Think about that...you could make a complete trip around the earth in one hour....imagine the possibilities.
I suppose they could put a small transmitter inside the ball & track it.
Would be interesting to try both a decent driver shot & a wedge shot too... the wedge or the driver might actually attain enough height or velocity to escape earths orbit
Of course one must ask the question of how we define distance - do we mean distance, or do we mean displacement? Consider you manage to hit a ball right the way around the world and it lands back on the tee box. You could say it has travelled around the world, but you could say it has only been displaced by a few feet. Even more boggling - if you had your senses 'turned off' during the event and only turned on after the ball landed, you couldnt actually say which of the 2 eventualities was true!
Sorry..... late night physics - always good for entertaining me!
I can see the news in 6 months time:
Golf stunt goes full circle to doom space station - a ball hit from the ISS several months previously has unfortunately collided with the same station causing catastrophic damage....
I'm no rocket scientist but I've got to believe the gravitational pull of the Earth would make that highly unlikely.
However, I may change my mind if was one of my wicked slices!
I suppose it might depend how high he tees a 5 wood shot... I've nearly sent one into orbit from ground level never mind at lord knows how many miles up whilst already orbiting at a rare old rate of knots... Skying a shot might be enough at that height to do it... might explain why its a 6 iron he's using & not something longer
March 11th, 2006, 01:07 PM
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