Golf in space event is postponed

The golf shot to be heard around the world has been indefinitely postponed by Russian space agency officials.

Thursday's 5 1/2-hour spacewalk by the Russian and U.S. occupants of the International Space Station will not include the previously announced attempt to hit a radio transmitting golf ball into Earth orbit, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The publicity stunt involved the payment of an undisclosed amount of money to Russia from a Canadian golf company. Russian officials did not explain the reason for the postponement.

In place of the golf shot, the astronauts will replace a malfunctioning camera on the U.S. side of the ISS.

NASA officials said the 65th ISS spacewalk will be unusual in that most of it will be controlled by Russia from that nation's control center near Moscow. The portion involving replacing the camera will be supervised by NASA mission control in Houston.

During the spacewalk, Pavel Vinogradov and Jeffrey Williams will also install a new hydrogen vent valve, recover a thruster rocket residue collector and retrieve a contamination-monitoring device and a package of biology experiments, the Times said.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International