History's Dumbest Idea ....

And for once it is not from the White House ... it's from the Russians.

The proposal is this: Since golf is a popular sport why not set a record for a drive of a golf ball? With or without a graphite shaft. (What sort of Freudian thing are golfers into anyway?)

The proposal is for a Russian spacewaker to hit a golf ball off the International Space Station. Yep: You read that right. Off the ISS. Not even as clever as Al Sheppard demoing the moons gravity by doing the same drive. And the ball will (depending on which direction he hits the ball), stay in orbit for years and years.

Great .. assuming the driver doesn't dig one great big divot in the ISS and just go ahead an kill himself right away....

One more piece of space debris to wreck and kill some future naught type who may not even like golf. Anyone who has seen the damage a simple paint chip can do to the 3" thick window of a shuttle can imagine the damage of a 2 ounce golf ball.

But this is about the level of science shown by the ISS and the Shuttle combined. It's almost as scientific as the experiment of how roses smell in space that was an experiment - and I use that term very loosely - on the ill-fated Columbia.

Dump the whole damn white elephant in the Pacific.