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

[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: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.