Remember that scene in Apollo 13 where the NASA engineers had to come up with a way for the astronauts to fit a square filter in a round hole using only things already on board the craft? The Mythbusters did that for Chris Hadfield when he was still on the International Space Station. They weren’t fixing an air filter, but they took care of an important problem
Boredom.
There are only so many things to do on the space station. It’s mostly work along with some eating and exercise, but in terms of recreation the options are pretty limited. In this new video by Tested.com Commander Hadfield shows off the in-flight Scrabble board as well as his own game, Space Darts.
The Mythbusters wanted to give Hadfield and the other astronauts more options, so they set out to create a game that can not only be played in space — it can only be played in space. It’s a pretty interesting concept, and it’s one more reason we want to go to space.
Alright, so it worked rather less well than they had hoped, but I’m sure with some refinement the astronauts on the ISS can make this thing a reality.
The real bonus of this video is that we all get to feel like Hadfield is still in space.
(via Tested.com on YouTube, Thanks to Daniel Portolan)
- Here are some of our favorite moments from Hadfield’s mission in space
- We were sad when Hadfield left the ISS, but his Earth tweets are still pretty great
- Why is it difficult to smell in space? Hadfield explains in this video
