Astronauts Kick Off World Cup With Their Own Soccer Game
This is how the game is played without gravity.
— -- Few athletes get the chance to play soccer at the World Cup, but even fewer get a chance to play the game in outer-space.
That's what astronauts Reid Wiseman, Steve Swanson and Alexander Gerst did in a video NASA posted on Instagram today to celebrate the first day of the competition.
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"As fans around the world tune in to World Cup 2014, a few fans out of this world will be watching, too," NASA wrote.
The clip shows the astronauts punting the ball around the International Space Station -- some 230 miles above Earth.
Coincidentally, the space station spans about the same length as a soccer field, NASA said.
NASA noted that Wiseman and Swanson, both American astronauts, and Gerst, who's from Germany, "are feeling a little friendly competition: their home countries will play against each other for a chance to advance out of Group G of the World Cup matches."
That game is on June 26.
For now, the astronauts wish all the teams and players good luck.
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