On Tuesday, astronauts aboard in the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time ever played Badminton game in space. A video of astronauts from Russia, the USA and Japan playing badminton match was released by Russian state space corporation- Roscosmos. The crew of ISS played doubles badminton match. The same was the part of a project to showcase their life in space. In the first set, Russian cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov played against the USA astronauts Mark Vande Hei and Japanese Norishige Kanai. In the second set, NASA’s Joseph Acaba replaced Vande Hei, Xinhua. Roscosmos didn’t reveal the final score and which team won the match.
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But they simply said that ‘Friendship won’ and the same as per Russian terms means the match was a draw. “The score wasn’t kept in the first match, so all athletes can be named the winners of the first historic match,” the National Badminton Federation of Russia announced on Tuesday. “In the future, in ships that will carry us to other worlds, it is necessary to provide a separate module for such a game since it is very useful from the point of view of psychological relaxation and strengthening of friendly relations in a team,” NASA’s Vande Hei commented.
Here is the video of the match:
Anton Shkaplerov who is one of the Russian astronauts in an earlier video showcased how to fly vacuum cleaner in space. He posted a video later showcasing him riding on one on Twitter. Such games which seem fun time are actually quite vital for astronauts as they should get some muscle activity now and then in space otherwise they can suffer from muscle atrophy or wasting away of muscles due to lack of activity. On earth, we use our muscles to resist the force of gravity and astronauts on the other hand, in space, hardly use muscles and the same can lead to adverse effects on their bodies. Any thoughts? Sound off in the comments below.