Space Station Saved By a Toothbrush?

Hugh Pickens writes "Denise Chow reports that two spacewalking astronauts successfully replaced a vital power unit on the International Space Station today, defeating a stubborn bolt that prevented the astronauts from properly installing the power unit on the ISS's backbone-like truss with the help of some improvised tools made of spare parts and a toothbrush. Astronauts Sunita Williams and Akihiko Hoshide started by removing the power box, called a main bus switching unit (MBSU), from where it had been temporarily tied down with a tether, then spent several hours troubleshooting the unit and the two bolts that are designed to secure it in place on the space station's truss. After undoing the bolts, the spacewalkers examined them for possible damage, and used improvised cleaning tools and a pressurized can of nitrogen gas to clean out the metal shavings from the bolt receptacles. 'I see a lot of metal shavings coming out,' Hoshide said as he maneuvered a wire cleaner around one of the bolt holders. Williams and Hoshide then lubricated a spare bolt and manually threaded it into the place where the real bolt was eventually driven, in an effort to ensure that the receptacle was clear of any debris. Then the two applied grease to the sticky bolt as well as extra pressure and plain old jiggling until finally 4½ hours into the spacewalk, Hoshide reported: 'It is locked.' When Hoshide reported that the troublesome bolt was finally locked into place, the flight managers erupted in applause while astronaut Jack Fischer at Mission Control told the astronauts 'that is a little slice of awesome pie.'"

Comments

This is why we need people in space

[jmorris42]

And this is why robots aren't going replace people anytime soon. One little thing goes wrong with an unmanned mission and either a major subsystem is written off or the entire mission is a failure. People are able to do thigs robots aren't going to be able to do for quite a while longer. And it gets even worse as soon as you go beyond full duplex radio range. If you have to send a command, wait for a result, try something else, repeat until you scream, things get really slow the second you aren't executing preplanned directions without errors.

And people can perform physical actions we have yet to build a robot to do reliably. Sure they can put thousands of bolt on one after another on an assembly line but how many could deal with this one stuck bolt? None. Now try to build one that can open up a panel and troubleshoot wiring or plumbing.

Re:This is why we need people in space

[crmanriq]

You are missing the obvious difference:

Robots don't use toothbrushes.

Notoriously poor dental care. It's almost like robots are, um, ... British.

Why do you think the cybermen just use speakers? And the daleks hide inside their little trash cans?

Re:This is why we need people in space

[CheeseTroll]

Perhaps, but a robot wouldn't have had a toothbrush in space, would it?

Re:This is why we need people in space

[adolf]

A robot might not have cross-threaded the bolt in the first place (why do you think there were metal shavings in the threads?)

Galling. If you haven't experienced it yet, you just haven't yet turned enough bolts.

Re:This is why we need people in space

[timeOday]

True, but not everybody's success rate is the same. One good trick is to start by turning the screw backwards until you feel it click, then start tightening.

Re:This is why we need people in space

[khallow]

Then you are indeed not much of an expert. Mars missions are notorious for failure. Manned missions despite their many flaws are not. For example, there have been four in-flight accidents that killed astronauts out of perhaps 200-300 manned missions over the past 50 years. In comparison, 26 of the 50 unmanned missions to Mars have failed.

This is not intended to be an apples to apples comparison (going to Mars is a wee bit harder than achieving orbit and doing a few things for a few days). I'm just pointing out the far greater number of failures on the unmanned side.

Re:This is why we need people in space

[EETech1]

It is very easy for some CNC machines to tell if it has a dull or broken drill bit, or tap. I don't think it would take that much to add that capability to many of today's robots.

We had servo controlled torque wrenches with process monitors on a robotic production line where I worked that could also tell you way more about how that bolt (torque and turn) tightened than most observant skilled wrench operators (yes there is a skill to feeling a bolt tighten) and almost anyone that does it for 8 hours straight. Every bolt, every time, perfectly tightened, or rejected!

The logic to determine the failure (bolt, threads, nut, washer, or part interference) was there, and normally spot on, I doubt the programming to rework the various parts would add much to the complexity of today's state of the art assembly (line worker replacement) robots.

Cheers! to our manual labor (job) eliminating robot overloards!

Re:This is why we need people in space

[stepho-wrs]

Except you are solving a known problem, after it happened.
It's much harder to solve problems before they are known.
It's much harder to build a robot that can solve unknown problems.

What might be useful though is a general purpose manipulator that can be controlled by humans on the ground.
Humans are useful because they have brains, eyes and general purpose hands, the combination of which can solve a huge number of problems.
Give the robot cameras, hands so that it can pick-up and use other tools or even non-tools (ie whatever is laying around the craft but wasn't explicitly designed as a tool) and a link to a human controller.

Re:This is why we need people in space

[LordSnooty]

Having bad teeth matters not a jot when you're too fat to fit in your spacesuit. See, i can stereotype too!

Biggest Surprise

[SuperKendall]

I'm more surprised that they have spare toothbrushes on hand than I am they were able to fix this.

all hail

[Anonymous Coward]

all hail the inanimate carbon rod!

Obligatory Simpsons

[DarkBlackFox]

"It's an inanimate carbon rod!!" http://i.imgur.com/ijjIh.png

Spare?

[PPH]

"Williams and Hoshide reporting in commander. We have good news and bad news. We managed to clear the threads on this power unit and complete installation. That's the good news. The bad news is that the only toothbrush we could find was yours."

My faith in NASA has been restored

[sabri]

American spaceship, Russian spaceship: all fixed with toothbrush!

Re:Yeah but how much did the toothbrush cost?

[PPH]

You get one free with each toilet seat.

Don't ask.

Re:Space station saved by ... Brains ...

[tragedy]

It wasn't them, it was the inanimate carbon rod!