U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly showed off his table tennis skills on the International Space Station Thursday playing a game of ping pong using a droplet of water instead of a ball.
Kelly demonstrated what happens when you use water-repellant paddles combined with a droplet of water and microgravity.
“Try this, Mary Poppins! Super-hydrophobic polycarbonate ping pong paddles and a water ball in space!” the astronaut tweeted, with a link to his video demo.
“I wanted to do a little demonstration of these paddles, they’re called hydrophobic paddles and they repel water, kind of like a raincoat,” Kelly explained. “But up here on the space station they allow you to play ping pong with a ball of water, it’s pretty cool.”
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Cool indeed.
If he isn’t playing a solo game of ping pong, or doing some serious NASA science experiments, Kelly is also gardening on the ISS as he wraps up a year in space.
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Last month, Kelly had to fight off mold that threatened to kill all the flowers in the space station’s mini-greenhouse. Mission Control gave him free rein, and he managed to save some of the crop. This type of autonomous gardening will be necessary during Mars expeditions, Kelly noted.
–with a file from The Associated Press
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