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Astronaut Loses Tools While Performing an EVA

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the only-human dept.

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."

4 of 445 comments (clear)

  1. I was just wondering by black_lbi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why isn't the tools bag somehow linked to the suit? with a strap or something ...

    1. Re:I was just wondering by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Every action has an equal and opposite reaction...

      With that in mind, I'm not sure it's a good idea to be "firing" things from your space suit. Depending on the force, some dangerous things might happen.

      Full disclosure: I don't really know anything about working in space - my comment might actually be really stupid and invalid (hence, I posted as ac...)

      No, you are right. Unless you fired it directly from your center of gravity, the most likely result is that you'd end up spinning around. If it was a grappling cable (seeing as we don't have magnetic tractor beams yet) you'd get wrapped up in it. Not fun.

      --
      There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
    2. Re:I was just wondering by sideshow · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      Very true. In "The Right Stuff", Tom Wolfe wrote that when test pilots were about to crash they would yell into the radio "I TRIED A! I TRIED B!" etc etc. to make sure that their death would yield some useful info on what happened to the plane.

      --

      Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.

  2. Time to hire space debris collectors by Carlosos · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe some other people also haven seen the anime "Planetes" that is about space debris collectors because too much stuff was lost in space that it was dangerous with all the stuff flying around.
    Lets say it starts with a screw flying at high speed at a space ship that went "boom".

    It might really become a problem in the future.