Last but not least: Do Martians play golf?
Highly loss-making Russian space programs open up special advertising opportunities: For good money, ISS board engineers chased a ball into space for a Canadian golf outfitter.
Highly loss-making Russian space programs open up special advertising opportunities: For good money, ISS board engineers chased a ball into space for a Canadian golf outfitter.
Mikhail Tyurin has probably never had an out-of-orbit mission like this before: last Wednesday, he launched a special golf ball weighing only about three grams into space. The action is part of an advertising campaign by golf equipment manufacturer Element 21, which purchased the longest tee shot ever for an unknown sum.
A failure would be devastating: If the ball landed in the highly sensitive solar sail of the ISS instead of in the vastness of space, it would cause serious problems with the energy supply of the space station. Likewise, the space golfer had to hit the ball against the flight direction of Discovery, which was to be launched on December 7, because NASA already feared the worst: golf ball crashes space shuttle.
With this advertising campaign, the golf equipment manufacturer not only wants to sell golf balls, but also to remind people of the first golf game on the moon 35 years ago. At that time, the U.S. astronaut Shepard swung the club - for fun, because at that time space programs still received their funding from the government. Either way, it was spectacular: The ball flew miles and miles and miles, as did Tjurin's. But even the most expensive advertising campaign is fleeting: in three days, the ball will burn up. We can only hope that a Martian won't hit it back, and that a catastrophe will occur.
Mikhail Tyurin has probably never had an out-of-orbit mission like this before: last Wednesday, he launched a special golf ball weighing only about three grams into space. The action is part of an advertising campaign by golf equipment manufacturer Element 21, which purchased the longest tee shot ever for an unknown sum.
A failure would be devastating: If the ball landed in the highly sensitive solar sail of the ISS instead of in the vastness of space, it would cause serious problems with the energy supply of the space station. Likewise, the space golfer had to hit the ball against the flight direction of Discovery, which was to be launched on December 7, because NASA already feared the worst: golf ball crashes space shuttle.
With this advertising campaign, the golf equipment manufacturer not only wants to sell golf balls, but also to remind people of the first golf game on the moon 35 years ago. At that time, the U.S. astronaut Shepard swung the club - for fun, because at that time space programs still received their funding from the government. Either way, it was spectacular: The ball flew miles and miles and miles, as did Tjurin's. But even the most expensive advertising campaign is fleeting: in three days, the ball will burn up. We can only hope that a Martian won't hit it back, and that a catastrophe will occur.
