First badminton match played in outer space

MOSCOW, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- For the first time in history, a game of badminton took place on board the International Space Station (ISS) with cosmonauts and astronauts from Russia, the United States and Japan taking part in the orbital tournament, Russian state space agency Roscosmos said Tuesday.

Russian cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Anton Shkaplerov played against their U.S. peer Mark Vande Hei and Japanese Norishige Kanai in the first set, a Roscosmos statement said.

In the second set, U.S. Joseph Acaba replaced Vande Hei.

"Friendship won", the statement said, without specifying the score. In Russian the phrase normally means that there was a draw.

The ISS commander, Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, said for him, playing a game in the orbit was "tantamount to placing a flag on Mars."

"In the future, in ships that will carry us to other worlds, it is necessary to provide a separate module for such a game since it is very useful from the point of view of psychological relaxation and strengthening of friendly relations in a team," Vande Hei with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration commented. Enditem