Space Boomerang – will it return?

Remember the origami space plane?

Well, Japan’s astronauts are doing it again, space-travel.com reports, with one putting himself through special training to throw the first boomerang in space:

Astronaut Takao Doi, 53, is set to travel on a US shuttle in March to the International Space Station, where he will be in charge of construction of a Japanese scientific testing room.

It is believed gravity is needed for a boomerang to fly back to the throwing spot, but no one has tried in zero gravity.

It’ll be made of paper, at least, so the ISS guys won’t have to worry about it whacking the equipment. And if it really does come back (and the origami space plane survives its re-entry), we could soon see the construction of the world’s first recyclable paper satellites.