Astronaut Loses Tools While Performing an EVA

tpheiska writes "NASA press release states that 'At approx. 3:33 p.m. EST, Piper reported that one of the Braycote lubrication guns had released grease into her toolbag. As she was cleaning the bag and wiping the tools and equipment inside, the bag floated away. Another bag carrying identical equipment is now being shared by Piper and Bowen.' Luckily they had a spare."

Comments

Re:I was just wondering

[Cthefuture]

I was thinking the same thing. I mean it's not uncommon to use a tether on your bag while on Earth. It would make even more sense in space.

Luckily?

[holophrastic]

Luckily they have a spare? Umm guys, not luck, planning. Not an accident, not for the grace of a god, simply a good thing. Give credit where credit is due: someone planned well.

If life had taught her anything...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Never go back for your bag.

Re:I was just wondering

[ILikeRed]

The rope came undone. What they need is a spacesuit with a magnetic grappling gun built into the arm of the suit to grab things like this before they float too far away. (Yes, like the Samus suit - who would not want to see that in space?)

What about the EVA retriever robot?

[Robotbeat]

NASA had a robot in development JUST FOR THIS SORT OF THING. In the early 1990s/late 1980s they were working on an autonomous robot that responds to voice commands that would fly around in space near a space station to retrieve tools or astronauts and such. It would be released and lock on to the tool or whatever and fly to it and fly back to the station. I have a picture of it in a kids book about robots, but I can't find one online.

Here's a fact sheet on the project:

http://cd.textfiles.com/spaceandast/TEXT/STATION/STF_EVA.TXT

EVA RETRIEVER FACT SHEET

Johnson Space Center (JSC)

March 25, 1988

          The EVA Retriever concept is an autonomous free flying robot
for retrieving equipment or a spacewalking astronaut drifting in
separated flight near the Space Station. The device combines the
proven manned maneuvering unit (MMU) with a robot latched in
where an astronaut normally would be. The MMU was flown eight
times from the Space Shuttle's cargo bay in test flights and for
satellite repair spacewalks.

          Responding to voice commands from the Space Station crew,
the EVA Retriever would activate and check itself out, search for
and lock onto the "target," thrust toward, rendezvous with and
grapple the target -- automatically avoiding any obstacles en
route such as Space Station structures. After grappling the
target, the EVA Retriever would search for the Space Station and
finding it, return home.

Re:And THIS is why

[Tisha_AH]

Pieces, parts and tools have been lost on a very large number of space missions since humanity first went into space. In zero G, if an object has the slightest amount of velocity and it is let go, it quickly is beyond your reach and irrecoverable.

Of course it goes without mention that men lost all of the previous items (including a spatula used to apply a test filler material for the shuttle tiles).

The misogyny of most of the posters to this article helps illustrate an earlier /. article on why fewer women are entering the computer sciences fields in university. Many ego-centric professionals (I use that term loosely) in the IT field still can see no use for a woman in their profession, unless we are staffing a help desk.

EVA missions during space travel are the most challenging and difficult activities of anything that NASA does. "Tim the Toolman" does not have a caddy of accessories to keep his stuff in place. Imagine how difficult it is to be standing on the end of a boom, attached to the shuttle. You have no visual frame of reference, the balance mechanisms in your ears are telling you one thing, your training is telling you something else. Now try to overhaul a bad rotary joint on one of the solar panels.

Ignorance is clearly bliss to several of the posters to this article.

Wait a second...

[Shaltenn]

OK I understand that the grease gun went off in the bag and covered the tools with goo and what not.

But... why not go inside before attempting to clean the stupid things off? I mean, the tools are still usable, if a little gunked up...

Kudos to NASA for having two sets of tools, one for each astronaut. ... Wait... You say they only have those two sets? No backups? ... ... -_-

Re:I was just wondering

[Konster]

Except they are not on Earth.

You don't want a tether on a bag full of stuff in orbit because it can act in pretty unpredictable ways, flailing about and risking the life of the person that's holding the bag is the first consideration. Guys, this isn't changing the oil on your car. A stray object can damage any one of the many couplings on the suit and rendering that suit inoperable very quickly. Bad news if you happen to be that person inside the suit at that time. Failure on Earth means you pick up the wrench and go back at it. Failure up there is a dead person on a mission with a multiples of billions of dollars pricetag hung off to the side.

Further, they are trained on instrument loss...tools floating off, et cetera. Again, this is not Earth wherein you can grasp around with complete impunity looking for whatever tool that just spun out on the garage floor. Space walkers especially are trained far more on what they cannot do than what they can do. They can reach out very slowly to try and recover something that is drifting off, but any large effort means that they may also join that tool bag on its long, lonely orbit around the Earth. In the small and large scheme of things, an astronaut is of far more value than a wrench or any multitudes thereof.

Also, yes, NASA knows a little bit about redundancy and especially so on space walks.

Give our astronauts a bit of credit here. Tough job. Worst pay on the planet (or near it) for the risk. Awesome view, but colossal vertigo.

A bit of trivia: space walker's microphones are muted for the first 30 seconds of their first space walk. Reason is this: in space, no one can hear you scream. And with the mic off, neither can Houston.

Re:I was just wondering

[F�an�ro]

A bit of trivia: space walker's microphones are muted for the first 30 seconds of their first space walk. Reason is this: in space, no one can hear you scream. And with the mic off, neither can Houston.

[[citation needed]]

Being unable to call for help if something goes wrong sounds like a major danger, no way nasa would do this.

Wow....

[RulerOf]

I don't know about you, but if my woman was at home making babies while I'm out on a space walk, I'd be pissed.

Re:I was just wondering

[sam_paris]

1) This is a small bag of tools we're talking about, not a giant ACME anvil. Having a bag tethered to you is not suddenly going to mean chaos and carnage. Besides, it could be strapped to the spacesuit in such a way that it wouldn't be flailing about.

2) The astronaut is not going to go flying off into space, as you suggested. 99.99% of space-walks are tethered (ie attached to the shuttle, space station etc)

3) As another commenter says below. I would like to see where Nasa says they mute the microphones. What if there was a problem in that period of time? Something which could potentially risk the entire mission, but which could be avoided by getting information from ground control?

Re:I was just wondering

[khallow]

No idea if it is true, but who on earth wants to hear the dying gurgle of a good friend?

Someone who wants to know something bad just happened and figure out what that was.

Re:I was just wondering

[AigariusDebian]

And even more importantly - if something does go wrong, the dying astronaut might be able to say what it was before dying. That chance alone is move valuable than any controller discomfort.