Space Balls

Just to set the playing field here: Japan is the country that first introduced microprocessors, affordable quality sedans and robot dogs. Yet this is what they bring to the table during a $450 million trip to the International Space Station? Seriously? A boomerang? This would be a fully acceptable “experiment” if we ever allowed an Aussie to hitch a ride with us (which is precisely why we don’t), but we should hold the Japanese to a much higher standard.

How can something like this even be justified? I thought the purpose of zero gravity experiments was to eventually understand things like limb and organ regeneration, or discover some new miracle drug cultivated from the growth of space crystals. Sure, I suppose if we ever need to hunt kangaroos on the moon or fend off some Martian Dingoes, this kind of research will prove to be invaluable. But in the meantime, there are probably a couple million cancer patients who wish you would make better use of your time in low Earth orbit, Takao Doi.

I won’t let my kids throw a Nerf ball in the living room for fear of knocking over a $3.00 Stein Mart drinking glass. Yet NASA allows this cat to fling a large wooden weapon around the cramped quarters of a $130 billion spacecraft 400 miles above the planet. It’s not like every move on that thing has to be carefully choreographed so as not to kill everyone on board or anything.

But thank God he was able to let his wife know the outcome while he was still up there. I’m sure the roaming charges involved with that kind of call are minimal, at best. Clearly, a breakthrough as monumental as boomerang flight could not have waited until his return to Earth.

Here’s wishing NASA lots of luck when they go before Congress next year to ask for an increase to their obviously justified $17 billion budget.