The video: Batter up! Baseball enthusiast Satoshi Furukawa, a Japanese astronaut stuck on the International Space Station without a roster full of teammates, decided to field a game all by himself. Taking the makeshift mound in zero gravity, Furukawa winds up, pitches his (not very) fastball, swims through the air until he's outpaced the slowly-moving ball, picks up a bat, thwacks the very pitch he just threw, and then fields the ball. Watch the video below, which includes a bonus Star Trek soundtrack.
The reaction: This should come as no surprise, says Kat Hannaford at Gizmodo UK. Life aboard the the International Space Station surely gets lonely; astronauts must "get sick of gazing at Earth, and chomping floating peanuts nut-by-nut." Of course, "baseball is typically a team sport," says Tibi Puiu at ZME Science. But in outer space, there's no commissioner's office, and no rules and regulations — only "the laws of physics." So why not improvise? See for yourself:
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
June 5 editorial cartoonsCartoons Thursday's political cartoons include a presidential get-out-of-jail-free card, masked ICE agents, and the Tooth Fairy's message for Senator Joni Ernst
-
Selling sex: why investors are wary of OnlyFans despite record profitsIn The Spotlight The platform that revolutionised pornography is for sale – but its value is limited unless it can diversify
-
Garsington Opera opens its summer festival with two 'very different productions'The Week Recommends A 'fabulous' new staging of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades and Donizetti's fake-love-potion comedy L'elisir d'amore
