Boomerang in Space Video
A while back I talked about the Japanese astronaut that went up into space just to throw a boomerang and discovered that it actually flew back to him just like on earth.
Well, Japan Probe has posted up the video of the astronaut Takao Doi throwing the boomerang inside the International Space Station. Feast your eyes on the wonders of the amazing boomerang.
I think this is sure gonna spark a new craze in boomerang.
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It isn’t really surprising that it came back, given how a boomerang works. The wings of a boomerang are airfoil in varying degrees of inclination and orientation, the overall goal of the design is to produce a force vector almost perpendicular to the path of flight. Whenever a force acts perpendicular to an object in motion the force is distributed over the duration of its path. In the case of a boomerang, this causes it to turn.
Additionally, there’s lift generation caused by the varying speeds at which air is traveling over the wings of the boomerang. However, lift is less of a concern in a reduced gravity environment.
But in either case, it’s not the presence of gravity that would dictate whether it returns or not, it’s the presence of air, or any medium which provides resistance.
If it were thrown in the near vacuum of space, it would not come back.
it wasnt as amazing as i pictured it….. somehow i imagined gundams doing it…..
Was pretty amazed with it, until I read Shirukii’s comment ^^;
its cool to know its possible but it really isnt convincing, hes not exactly floating lol
is this where money is going these days???
@ Shirukii: Darn, now the video feels less exciting … LOL. But thanks for the great explanation.
@ Dee: LOL gundams with boomerang, they’d have to be really huge ones.
@ Mizunaga: Yeah, the science behind it took away all the coolness.
@ KiTT: LOL yeah all the billion of taxpayers money is to send astronaut up into space to play around with boomerang and drive around the moon.