NASA Says an Astronaut Threw a Football 564,664 Yards
Why not.
In an act of extreme silliness, American astronaut Tim Kopra threw a football in the International Space Station that, NASA says, is the “longest Hail Mary pass ever,” or 564,664 yards.
The pass was thrown in zero gravity, only went about 80 yards, and wasn’t caught by anyone—it hit a part of the space station. But, yes, the ball did travel 564,664 yards, if you take into account that the space station orbits the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour.
It’s unclear when Kopra accomplished this feat, since he returned from space in June. But NASA released footage of it over the weekend, in anticipation of the Super Bowl. The sporting event took place in Houston, home of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, to which Tom Hanks was referring to when he mentioned in Apollo 13 that there might be a “problem.”
Had Kopra wanted to “throw” the ball farther, he, in theory, could have thrown it at a slower speed, meaning that it would have taken even longer to reach its end, meaning that it would have traveled even longer than 564,664 yards. Maybe next time.
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