Skywatchers spot ‘lost’ space tool kit

[IDemo]

Spacewalker’s bag is visible through binoculars, if you know where to look

MSNBC -updated 37 minutes ago

Amateur astronomers have been monitoring a shiny tool bag that has been orbiting Earth ever since it was dropped last week by an astronaut during a spacewalk outside the international space station.

The bag is reportedly about magnitude 6.4, which under most sky conditions is too faint to see with the naked eye.

Veteran spacewalker and Endeavour astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper lost her grip on the backpack-sized bag on Nov. 18 while cleaning up a mess from a leaking grease gun she was carrying. The grease was being used to help mop up metal grit from inside a massive gear that turns the space station's starboard solar wings.

The tool bag cost $100,000, and its loss meant astronauts had to share the remaining tool bag for subsequent spacewalks. The tool bag weighs about 30 pounds (14 kilograms) and is 20 inches (51 centimeters) wide, about a foot (30 centimeters) high and a hand's-width deep, according to John Ray, STS-126 lead spacewalk officer for the flight. The bag contained two grease guns, a scraper tool, a large trash bag and a small debris bag.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27910795/

[Ian David]

1. My wife is always losing her handbag, too. n/t

[XOKCowboy]

2. ROFL

I hope you get flamed for that! :rofl:

[Kalyke]

5. My husband's always losing his head.

[Fumesucker]

3. You can't "drop" something in zero gee..

Newswriters say the dumbest things.

[damntexdem]

9. How wrenching!

Probably had too many screwdrivers.

[BlueJazz]

17. Yeah..I was wondering how you "Drop" something in space...

[MarkInCA]

19. Like mentioning what it weighs

It weighed virtually nothing in space.

[Hekate]

4. Why was it not tethered? Objects drift-- where was its leash? nt

[arcadian]

6. Been wondering. Does such a blunder mean she won't go up again?

That's a pretty big fuck up. Think she'll be "looked over" on future missions?

[Liberal In Texas]

16. She's lucky she has a government job, some private companies would make her pay for it! n/t

[KittyWampus]

7. Say that tool bag managed to plunge thru atmosphere intact and hit your car destroying it...

could you sue NASA?

This assumes you could identify object

[lpbk2713]

8. $100K for a 12 x 20 tool pouch.

NASA must have acquired that through KBR/Halliburton on a no-bid contract.

[damntexdem]

11. Be reasonable -- $95k of that was for the special, no-fail tethering system!

;-)

[nykym]

10. There's Video

of it streaking accross the sky. This from the article on spaceweather.com

After sunset on Nov. 22nd, Edward Light saw the bag using 10x50 binoculars as it sailed over his backyard in Lakewood, New Jersey. "It was quite a favorable 70-deg pass in clear skies," he says. "The visual magnitude of the bag was about +6.4 plus or minus half a magnitude." On the same night, Keven Fetter of Brockville, Ontario, video-recorded the bag zipping past the 4th-magnitude star eta Pisces: 900 kB movie. "It was easily 8th magnitude or brighter," says Fetter.


http://www.spaceweather.com/swpod2008/23nov08/33442.wmv?PHPSESSID=0aq1bl3crsgn3297a6hegvv9c2

[Lex]

12. too hot to grab now

I guess :)

[LeftyMom]

13. Overpriced trash in Pisces. That explains my sudden urge to go to the mall...

Astrology works. Who knew? :shrug:

[Book Lover]

15. DUzy!! (nm)

[lapfog_1]

14. $100K and no one thought to attach a tether. - n/t

[slackmaster]

18. w00T!

:spray:

[Ezlivin]

20. They sent the wrong woman to space to work with tools

I think ol' Ralph Monroe from "Green Acres" would not have lost her tools.

[Bobbie Jo]

21. At $100,000...I'm catching that sucker when it lands.

:think: