Japanese Astronaut rides ‘Magic Carpet’

Picture courtesy of Disney
Space, the final frontier, is truly a magical place. Japanese astronaut, Koichi Wakata illustrates this through carrying out 16 zero-gravity challenges on the International Space Station that was issued by the Japanese public.
One of these challenges was for Koichi to ride a ‘magic carpet’ which was really a large bathroom mat, but in zero-gravity, it did the trick. The difficult part wasn’t to get his ‘magic carpet’ to float (obviously), but rather, to make sure his feet stayed on it. This was overcome with some adhesive tape.
Other challenges included using eye drops, folding laundry and doing push-ups, which are simple tasks down here on Earth, but has proven to be quite the feat in zero gravity for Koichi. Too bad NASA doesn’t have a similar arrangement with they’re own astronauts, it would be interesting to see what the American public comes up with.
I wonder why the ISS even have bathroom mats…
[telegraph.uk via Engadget]






