Astronauts 'drop' space tool bag

[tekisui]

Astronauts working on the International Space Station have lost a tool bag.

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper watched helplessly as the kit drifted away from her as she serviced the solar array system on the orbiting platform.

The briefcase-sized tool bag is one of the largest items ever lost on a spacewalk.

The event occurred during the first spacewalk of the latest shuttle flight to the ISS, which is intended to give the orbiting platform a major makeover.

The works undertaken by the visiting Endeavour astronauts will allow the station to increase its residential crew complement next year from the current three members to six members.

Stefanyshyn-Piper's slip occurred as she was greasing a rotary joint on the station's giant starboard solar array system. The joint has been unable to automatically point the solar wings toward the Sun for maximum energy production for over a year.

Just as she was finishing up the job, the tool bag became untethered from a larger kit case and floated away along with a pair of grease guns, wipes and a putty knife.

She reached out, but to no avail. The lost bag is now moving ahead of the station and increasing its distance to the platform, giving flight controllers confidence it poses no danger to the ISS.

more w/video at link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7737250.stm

[Frank Cannon]

1. You would think they would have tethers on these things

Oh, well, just add it to the rest of the orbital shitheap.

[brendan120678]

2. When I drop a tool...

I've been known to let out a profanity or two. However, I can just bend over and pick it back up.

I wonder what was going through her mind as she tried to grab the tools floating away?

[Lerkfish]

3. "oh....I'm such an ASSteroid!"

[shadowknows69]

4. Great now some alien species will learn how to fix our barely working spaceships

And soon more American jobs will be outsourced.

[Fumesucker]

5. Space, the big black toolbox..

I used to work offshore on oil rigs.. Oil rigs don't have solid decks, it's a kind of metal grating...

You can drop a tool that you couldn't hammer through the grating and it will slide through without touching anything.. And then it winds up in the ocean.

We used to call the ocean "The big blue toolbox" it had so many tools in it.

[TlalocW]

6. I'm sorry but a multi-million or billion dollar space station

Should not need someone using a putty knife on the windows. That worries me.

TlalocW

[shadowknows69]

7. How do you think the people living there feel?

Don't look down, the first step is a doozy.