Astronaut Records World's Fastest Throw

Recently, an astronaut set the world record for the fastest throw by throwing a 1,400-pound piece of junk off the International Space Station at over 17,000 miles per hour. As recently reported by NASA in a press release, astronaut Clay Anderson removed the junk to accommodate for future construction. The piece of junk was approximately the size of a refrigerator, and weighs over 1,400 pounds on Earth. The object will be tracked by NASA and is expected to re-enter the atmosphere within a year, and is likely to burn up and crash into the ocean.

Anderson was strapped to the end of the International Space Stations robotic arm, which was controlled from inside the space station by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov. The piece of trash was originally designed to be used as a backup cooling system for the space station during early construction, in case of a primary failure. The Early Ammonia Servicer (EAS), the piece of trash, was a holding tank for Ammonia that would be used in a failure, for emergency backup. After Anderson removed the EAS from the truss, and maneuvered it to the end of the arm.

After using his jetpack to maneuver around, Anderson was strapped to the very end of the arm, essentially dangling out into outer space. At that point, he was instructed to lean back as far as possible and then push forward as quickly as he could, pushing the large object away from the space station. After the push, Anderson returned inside the space station, at which point the station crew used engines on-board to boost the station away from the free floating object.

NASA had originally planned on bringing the EAS back to Earth on a space shuttle flight. However, the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia accident claiming the lives of 7 astronauts changed the plans of the agency. After the accident, flights were grounded for nearly two years, causing non-essential construction missions to be scrapped, leaving NASA with no option other than throwing the waste into space.

During the same space walk, Anderson and fellow cosmonaut Fyodor Yurhchikhim were tasked with reconfiguring cameras outside, in order to prepare for upcoming construction flights by the space shuttle. The reconfiguration allows for view of areas where pieces will be added to the station. The International Space Station was first launched in 1998 on board a Russian rocket, launched from Kazakhstan. The International Space Station is a joint venture of 15 different space agencies, in order to promote cooperation between various countries in the future exploration of space. Astronauts spend anywhere from 3 months to upwards of a year on the space station, with transportation either by United States Space Shuttle's or Russian Soyuz's module's. The International Space Station orbits nearly 200 miles above the Earth, and has traveled over one billion miles.