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back to article Astronaut runs Boston marathon from space

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams has completed the Boston Marathon in an unofficial time of four hours and 24 minutes, despite being strapped to a treadmill in orbit on the International Space Station. Williams qualified for the Boston Marathon with her three hour 37 minute run in the 2006 Chevron Houston Marathon. She said she …

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  1. Jonathan

    Space Race

    A couple of points occur to me when reading this story.. Way up there in space.... Oxygen is valuable, how much more did they burn with this lady running for this time ?

    But the real reason for my comment can you imagine getting stuck in a tin can with someone sweating (not in a nice way if there is one) for nearly four hours.....

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  2. Rob

    Oh I dunno...

    She's obviously physically fit and brainy too to be a NASA space-jock...

    A sweaty, fit, clever bird who's strapped down? How many of us wouldn't enjoy being in that room for 4 hours?

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  3. Del Merritt

    She's a dynamo

    I'd like to hope the NASA and ISS engineers hooked that treadmill up to a generator. That would help justify some of the O2 use and make up for any deficiencies from the solar panels. And perhaps she was trying to burn off some of the calories from the "gourmet" meal that was recently brought on-board.

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  4. Chris

    Talk about foolish

    As commented above, oxygen is quite a valuable commodity on the ISS. And if memory serves me correctly, their oxygen generator has failed numerous times in the past few years. Is it really a good idea to purposely consume more oxygen when your generator could seemingly fail at any minute?

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  5. Matt Caldwell

    Oxygen...

    I realize some the oxygen gen. has had trouble, but I'm sure there is at least one backup. In addition, there are emergency canisters that release O2 via chemical reactions, and Worst case scenario they have an escape capsule. I seriously doubt the running consumed enough extra oxygen to put serious strain on their systems or they would not have done the event, plus the publicity is a great way to keep the public interested in space travel/exploration and the ISS.

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