WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 (UPI) — United States astronaut Scott Kelly had fun with gravity as he demonstrated how to play ping pong with water on the International Space Station.
Kelly shared a video to Facebook showing off a pair of water repellent paddles that allowed him to bat a ball of water back and forth like a ping pong ball.
“Try this Mary Poppins!” he wrote. “Super-hydrophobic polycarbonate ping pong paddles and a water ball in space!”
According to a post on the International Space Station’s Facebook page, the paddles are laser etched with polycarbonate and spray coated with teflon giving them a “non-wettability” that allows the water particles to bounce of of the surface rather than bursting.
“The larger the drop, the less force it takes to break up. The smaller drop, the harder you can hit it,” they said.
The drop of water used by Kelly is approximately 100 times larger than a rain drop.
