Astronaut to Run the Boston Marathon From Space

BostonBehindTheScenes writes "American astronaut Sunita Williams will run 26.2 miles on a treadmill on Patriot's Day (April 16th for those of you outside of Massachusetts) while runners on the ground will compete in the 111th Boston Marathon, according to this New Scientist article. And yes, she is an actual registered participant who qualified by finishing among the top 100 women in the Houston Marathon in 2006. NASA's press release touts this as yet another space first."

Pork.

[Morky]

I protest! She is wasting precious oxygen paid for by you the taxpayer.

MOM!

[bigattichouse]

Moooooommm, Sunie's hogging all the oxygen again!

Sunie, Cut it out. Don't antaonize your sister.

But, I gotta win the maaarathonn.

Well, do it quietly, dear. Your sister has experiments to conduct.

That place is gonna smell...

[sycodon]

...like a locker room.

Tell us what we REALLY want to know!

[erroneus]

Will she be wearing diapers?!

Do I hear a rumbling at Arlington Cemetery?

[Bazman]

Can you imagine if JFK was president now? "We choose to run on the space treadmill and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are publicity stunts!".

What next? Unix hacker to run the marathan from ..

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

... the C shell?

Taking part in the marathon

[Rogerborg]

In the same way that with a webcam, you don't need to be on-hand (or on anything else) to contribute to a bukkake.

think of the aliens!

[symes]

Seriously, what would our outer-space neighbours think if they picked that moment to swing by and pay us a visit? They're just going to scratch their heads and think we're some backwards species that powers space flight by putting funny sweaty little creatures on treadmills!

Re:Tell us what we REALLY want to know!

[Corporate Troll]

Of course, how else do you think she's going to last several hours without going to the bathroom?

Have you never driven a long trip with a women in your car? *sigh*

Re:Treadmill vs road

[Quarters]

She'll already be moving close to 17500 mph. How much more of a headwind do you want her to have?

Re:Is this really fair?

[martin-boundary]

Sometimes great publicity ideas can backfire. I hope they thought about attaching a dynamo and lightbulb combo to the threadmill, it's pretty dark up there in space and the worst thing would be if she tripped up and started falling continuously towards the earth....

In other news...

[dour power]

NASA confirms that Rosie Ruiz [wikipedia.org] has stowed away on a Soyuz supply ship scheduled to dock with the ISS just before the end of the marathon.

And elsewhere...

[ciaohound]

an anonymous slashdotter will be competing in the wheelchair category from his cubicle using an Aeron chair and a piezoelectric sensor to detect lateral fidgeting while slinging Java for a large consulting outfit.

Re:Patriot Day?

[Anonymous Coward]

It celebrates the battles of Lexington and Concord of a certain war which you are not a patriot if you cannot name.

I'm a patriot, and I can name it. It was the war of the treasonous, ungrateful colonists ;-)

Re:Pork.

[GreyPoopon]

Or does the fact that it might be a european taxpayer make it all ok?

Speaking as an American, I'm perfectly happy to let the Europeans pay my taxes. *duck*

Re:Treadmill vs road

[Lumpy]

you think that's a difference. try it in zero G.

I dare you to run on a real road in Zero G. I bet you cant make it past the first step!

She'll finish first, though

[Migraineman]

The ISS is moving at 7.726 km/s (I checked this morning - I'm running Orbitron to track a different satellite [navy.mil].) 26.2 miles converts to 42.165 km, so she should traverse the course length in about 5.5 seconds.

How many steps does it take to complete a marathon from low earth orbit? A one ... a two ... a three. Three.

Gona be a short (~5 sec) race...

[OhMickey]

...at 17500mph she should cross at about the 5.35 second mark.

Re:What next? Unix hacker to run the marathan from

[mknewman]

I want to run the Marathon from my Wii.

Running marathon on my couch

[steelerguy]

It looks like I will be running the marathon on my couch and quit possibly in my bed also, probably won't be doing too much running either, but hey...at least I am participating in the Boston Marathon (even though I not in the correct city or state or registered or even running).