On the 18th of January, while most of the country slept, a small bit of history was made. High above the Earth, an unusual pair of go games was played by Dan Barry and Koichi Wakata, astronauts and go enthusiasts on board the space shuttle Endeavour. They replayed a famous go game and then played a game of their own, each on boards specially designed for weightlessness.
”GO to space, a journey of 4,000 years” and ”Be Good and Be Right” were the slogans inscribed respectively in English and Chinese on the two go boards and carried on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour. This flight of the Endeavour circulated the earth from January 11, 1996 through January 20, 1996. On these boards, Barry and Wakata, two of the six Endeavour’s astronauts, made history by playing the first board game ever in space. These activities were also the climax of the space go contests that were sponsored by the American Go Association (AGA), funded by the American Go Foundation (AGF), and organized by the Houston Go Club (HGC).
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