An official 1984 World Series baseball hovers before a camera aboard the International Space Station (ISS) during a sports-themed demonstration of spaceflight.

ISS Expedition 14 commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, an avid baseball fan, used a ball signed by former Detroit Tigers outfielder Kirk Gibson (top) to show the station’s movement during a Dec. 4 orbital boost. Along for the ride is what appears to be a mermaid floating in a contained sphere.

During that 23-minute engine burn by a docked Russian cargo ship, the space station raised its orbit to a maximum altitude of about 219.5 statute miles (353 kilometers). As the station flew higher, it moved around the baseball giving the sporty sphere an appearance of flying the length of the U.S. Destiny lab (bottom).

Meanwhile, Lopez-Alegria’s Expedition 14 crewmates, flight engineers Mikhail Tyurin and Thomas Reiter, also filmed various objects inside the space station’s Destiny.

In the bottom view, Lopez-Alegria appears at the lower right, while Reiter has turned his back to head out of Destiny, the baseball close on his heels.

Monday’s baseball antics were not the first orbital sports event of the Expedition 14 crew. Tyurin smacked a golf ball into orbit during a Nov. 22 spacewalk using a gold-plated six-iron club [image].

European Space Agency astronaut Christer Fuglesang, who is slated to perform two spacewalks outside the ISS next week during NASA’s STS-116 mission, is also taking a Frisbee with him to set a new orbital record.

• BLOG: Space Station’s Orbital Boost Goes Well
• Mission Discovery: The ISS Rewiring Job of NASA’s STS-116
• Complete Space Shuttle Mission Coverage
• Complete Coverage: ISS Expedition 14
  
  

-- Tariq Malik

Credit: NASA TV.