Golf in lofty company tomorrow

Thinking of taking in a round of golf Thanksgiving Day?   You'll be in lofty company.

Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin is set to strikes a lightweight golf ball with a special 6-iron from outside the international space station Thursday in a promotional stunt for a Canadian golf club manufacturer, the Associated Press is reporting.Tyurin, replete in his bulky spacesuit, will attempt a one-handed swing with one foot wedged in between the hand rails of a ladder on the outside of the space lab. Fortunately, he’ll be tethered, as astronauts are for all spacewalks.

In space, nobody can hear you scream ‘Fore!’ But that's not something a Russian is likely to yell anyway. And you won’t be able to see Tyurin’s golf swing either — at least not in real time.

The cameras aren’t in position on the Russian side of the space station, where the golf stunt will take place, although cameras on the U.S. side may be able to capture some distant images. Tyurin’s crewmate will set up a camera to record it for the golf club maker, E21 Golf, to use later.

The golf stunt is the first task for Tyurin and U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria during a six-hour spacewalk set to begin around 6 p.m. EST. Their other jobs are more like real work — fixing a space station antenna and retrieving science experiments.