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Astronaut Loses Tools While Performing an EVA
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Nov 19, 2008 09:32 AM
from the only-human dept.
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."
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Dropped Shuttle Toolbag Filmed From Earth 389 comments
cathector writes "An article at spaceweather.com reports that the toolbag dropped during Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper's spacewalk has been recorded on film from earth: 'When Endeavour astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper dropped her toolbag during a spacewalk on Nov. 18th and it floated away, mission controllers probably figured they'd seen the last of it. Think again. Last night, Nov. 22nd, veteran satellite observer Kevin Fetter video-recorded the backpack-sized bag gliding over his backyard observatory in Brockville, Ontario. "It was easily 8th magnitude or brighter as it passed by the 4th magnitude star eta Pisces," he says. Spaceweather's satellite tracker is monitoring the toolbag.'"
The actual loss of the bag was filmed, too; reader Kagura links in a comment on the original story to this YouTube clip of the bag's escape.
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I was just wondering (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking the same thing. I mean it's not uncommon to use a tether on your bag while on Earth. It would make even more sense in space.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There's always the chance the object will interact with another NEO and not come back, but if no other force acts on it, it should just intersect orbits on the next revolution since it seems like very little force was imparted to the object to cha
Re:I was just wondering (Score:4, Informative)
If you let go of an object while in orbit, it doesn't just hover in that exact spot over the earth and wait for you to come back around. If it did, then the shuttle/ISS would likely collide with that object at a very high speed and it'd be game over. I'm not sure if that's what you're implying, but it certainly doesn't work that way
The tool bag or whatever is orbiting the earth at the same speed as the astronaut. If I was that astronaut and I lightly pushed my tool bag away, it would mostly continue in the same orbit that it and I had before, plus it would have a small bit of momentum in whatever direction I shoved it. If I only pushed it lightly, then relative to me it would only be moving away very slowly. If it's moving away from me at one mile per hour, then after a 90 minute orbit, then it would be a mile and a half away from me, still moving away at that same speed.
I guess theoretically, if you ignore any sort of air resistance causing orbital decay, if you shoved the toolbag in a direction that didn't change the altitude of the bag in relation to the earth, then it might eventually your path again, but it's not likely to happen.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Informative)
I think the original poster may be correct on this one.
He was not implying that the object would stay still, rather that after the 'shove', the object would now be in a different orbit. The two orbits initially intersect at the point that the 'shove' finishes and no more force has been exerted in changing it's orbit.
Now picture two orbital paths around the planet, but one is at a slightly different angle to the other. They intersect at 2 points, 180 degrees apart. Therefore, the object would stop moving away, relative to you, after 1/4 an orbit. After half an orbit, the orbits would intersect again and you could pick up the spanner.
This, of course assumes that the 'shove' only had a lateral (left/right) component. Any component of force that was up,down, forwards or backwards relative to the initial direction of traffic would complicate that a lot and I do not know how to "in my head" work that out.
The chances of *only* giving the tool a force in the correct plane is, however, pretty unlikely, so the spanner is likely lost for sure.
Tom...
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Informative)
For example, if you push the object backward along the flight path, it will now have a slightly lower velocity which will take it to a lower altitude on the other side of the earth, and then back up to your altitude. But that orbit will have a shorter period, so by the time you get back to the start point, the object will have been and gone.
Also, at the altitudes where the Shuttle flies, you're not truly out of the atmosphere...you're still hitting gas molecules from time to time, and every impact takes a tiny bit of energy out of your orbit, which ever-so-slowly brings it downward; that's why low-orbiting satellites don't stay up terribly long. When you eject an object backwards and lower its orbit, it will dip a little deeper into the atmosphere and incur a tiny bit more drag than you do -- which will prevent it ever getting back up to your height again. When a newly-launched satellite deploys its various antennas and stuff, it often has to eject various covers that protected them during launch, and it ejects them back along the flight path for precisely that reason.
rj
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:4, Funny)
/
And gravity sucks...look up 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica'.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:4, Funny)
Are you trying to hit the Earth?
Try firing your rifle directly opposite the direction of your ship's orbit.
You would get faster results if you upgrade your rifle to one which can fire at the same speed as your ship's speed."
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
[[citation needed]]
Being unable to call for help if something goes wrong sounds like a major danger, no way nasa would do this.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:4, Insightful)
No idea if it is true, but who on earth wants to hear the dying gurgle of a good friend?
Someone who wants to know something bad just happened and figure out what that was.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:4, 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.
Parent
Radio silence (Score:5, Funny)
Mission Control: ... "
"And so, the world waits and listens, as the brave astronauts consider how to spend their last few hours of precious life. We can no longer communicate with the heroic crew, but we have one last audio feed still working. We can hear them, but tragically, they can't hear us
Audio feed: ..."
"Chuck?"
"Yeah, Tony?"
"We're gonna die, ain't we?"
"Yeah, Tony. We are."
"Is there anything you really wished you'd tried, just once, when you had the chance?"
"A few things, Tony. Yeah. A few."
"Have you ever wondered what, like, it'd be like to 'do it' with another guy? Because
Mission Control:
"Aaargh! Aargh! Noooooo! Turn it OFF!"
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
2) The astronaut is not going to go flying off into space, as you suggested. 99.99% of space-walks are tethered (ie attached to the shuttle, space station etc)
3) As another commenter says below. I would like to see where Nasa says they mute the microphones. What if there was a problem in that period of time? Something which could potentially risk the entire mission, but which could be avoided by getting information from ground control?
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Informative)
>>99.99% of space-walks are tethered
You either greatly overestimated how many spacewalks have taken place or you you are planning for the future:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacewalks_and_moonwalks [wikipedia.org]
We've done 7 untethered spacewalks, so your percentage should probably use 2 or fewer significant digits.
-b
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Informative)
"A bag on a strap will come back and hit you, wrap around you, your arms, your legs, damage your suit, etc."
For all those above with reasons why it would be a bad idea to tether the bag, it was _supposed_ to be tethered, just as all the tools inside it are tethered to the bag.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:4, 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.
Parent
Re:I was just wondering (Score:4, Informative)
Eventually they'll deorbit and burn up, but probably not for a while. The tools were in a stable orbit when they were dropped and they weren't thrown very hard (just enough so they were out of reach by the time it was noticed). It takes quite a bit more delta-v than that to deorbit.
Air resistance will get it in a couple weeks at most.
Something the size and density of a space suit takes about six weeks to deorbit due to air resistance at the ISS altitude.
It's an interesting thing to consider, will the much smaller tool bag with its vastly inferior surface area to volume ratio compensate for the (probably) higher density of the tool bag? It is smaller, so it should deorbit much faster because it has much more surface are per volume thus more air drag. On the other hand, the metal tools in the bag are probably somewhat denser than an old space suit.
The ISS has about a pound of force from air resistance, roughly. The toolbag has probably a thousandth the surface area, but probably only a millionth the weight. So it'll probably deorbit about a thousand times faster than the ISS. I am guessing this guess is only accurate to maybe two orders of magnitude.
I'm heard that a hot air balloon (just the fabric canopy) would deorbit in about a revolution due to air resistance, whereas a steel I-beam, pointy end forward (good luck due to gravity gradient stabilization) would not deorbit for decades. That claim that I heard is probably off by even more orders of magnitude.
See link below about the suitsat launched from the station, pictures, how long it lasted, etc.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/articles/SuitSat/ [amsat.org]
Parent
Laurel & Hardy? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Do we have any humorous black & white silent space footage of this skit?
... add some hokey 1920's ragtime music to the it, speed it up just unnaturally fast and they just might be sitting on a viral video here!
...
Seriously, NASA's gotta come up with financing somehow
Come on, it practically writes itself:
Setting: Exterior of shuttle.
A lanky beanpole Bowen discovers that grease has been dispensed into her bag. Not wanting to alert the portly Bowen and face his wrath, she quickly empties the contents of the bag to wipe them off. As she cleans each tool, she sets it back down on the shuttle but soon realizes that they merely float back up. She rotates through each tool, setting it back on the shuttle but forgets about the bag! Bowen hears the heavy breathing in his earpiece and turns around in time to see the bag floating away while Piper is pre-occupied with the tools. He scowls and makes a move for the bag but slips on grease and tumbles out into space, tethered only by his life support
there is footage (Score:3, Informative)
i saw it on nbc this morning
its a top down point of view of the astronaut. she sets the toolbag to the side and addresses some other piece of equipment in front of her, and the bag slowly drifts down, in camera view
by the time she turns her attention back to it, you can see the shock in her hand gestures trying to grab it, now below her waist. i guess space suits don't provide bend
And THIS is why (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And THIS is why (Score:5, Insightful)
Pieces, parts and tools have been lost on a very large number of space missions since humanity first went into space. In zero G, if an object has the slightest amount of velocity and it is let go, it quickly is beyond your reach and irrecoverable.
Of course it goes without mention that men lost all of the previous items (including a spatula used to apply a test filler material for the shuttle tiles).
The misogyny of most of the posters to this article helps illustrate an earlier /. article on why fewer women are entering the computer sciences fields in university. Many ego-centric professionals (I use that term loosely) in the IT field still can see no use for a woman in their profession, unless we are staffing a help desk.
EVA missions during space travel are the most challenging and difficult activities of anything that NASA does. "Tim the Toolman" does not have a caddy of accessories to keep his stuff in place. Imagine how difficult it is to be standing on the end of a boom, attached to the shuttle. You have no visual frame of reference, the balance mechanisms in your ears are telling you one thing, your training is telling you something else. Now try to overhaul a bad rotary joint on one of the solar panels.
Ignorance is clearly bliss to several of the posters to this article.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummm... I don't know how to tell you this but...
You do know that the Enterprise was never actually built, don't you? All of that footage was either a 6 inch model or some cheesy computer graphics?
damn it whats wrong with me (Score:5, Funny)
"guns had released grease into her toolbag ..."
Typical woman (Score:5, Funny)
More interested in cleaning stuff than getting on with the job! :o)
Advertisment (Score:4, Funny)
- Hammer-On-A-Rope!
- Screwdriver-On-A-Rope!
- Chisel-On-A-Rope!
- Rope-On-A-Rope!"
Footage of the incident (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Footage of the incident (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Luckily? (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily they have a spare? Umm guys, not luck, planning. Not an accident, not for the grace of a god, simply a good thing. Give credit where credit is due: someone planned well.
Why did it have to be a woman... (Score:3, Insightful)
Women already have it hard enough trying to "keep up with the boys." Jeebus. The 20 or so comments already on here are more than enough.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah. I actually have mod points today, but I can't find the option for "-1, pathetic bigotry".
Sexism != bigotry
Well, exept it already did (Score:5, Informative)
Except, say, to the Russians repairing the ISS with improvised tools, because they lost the original tools. [slashdot.org] Or that guy Ed White, the first spacewalker, who lost a spare glove. Or Piers Sellers who lost a spatula. Or those intrepid souls in 2006 who lost a couple of bolts while connecting an addition to the ISS. Or let's hear it for Jerry L. Ross on STS-88, who managed to lose an anchor socket and a panel into space on the very first spacewalk, then a thermal blanket on the second spacewalk. Etc.
(Though, in all fairness, more fun than guys losing tools was when an Indonesian sat got hit by feces. Literally. That's when NASA stopped dumping their shit in space.)
Or on Earth, you have such fine specimens as Dr. Wesley Meyers, the dentist who managed to kill a patient by dropping a too down his throat (and into his lung.) A second time.
Parent
If life had taught her anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
The Grease (Score:3, Informative)
What about the EVA retriever robot? (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [textfiles.com]
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Sleep time (Score:3, Funny)
Man, that's a pretty damn regimented sleep time. I guess there's no quickly checking /. before bed.
Wait a second... (Score:3, Insightful)
But... why not go inside before attempting to clean the stupid things off? I mean, the tools are still usable, if a little gunked up...
Kudos to NASA for having two sets of tools, one for each astronaut.
Uhm ... what? (Score:4, Funny)
"lubrication guns had released grease into her toolbag"
Am i really the only one who thought of porn when reading this? I hope not.
Time to hire space debris collectors (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.
Porn? (Score:3, Funny)
lubrication guns had released grease into her toolbag. As she was cleaning the bag and wiping the tools and equipment inside
This is the most obscene thing I've ever read here.
Gr*sr (Score:4, Funny)
So can we look forward to a sentient grease gun arriving back in Earth orbit some time in the future demanding to speak to the head mechanic?
Re:color me unsurprised (Score:4, Funny)
Not even when it's coated with lube?
Parent
Wow.... (Score:3, Insightful)
And in today's episode of "learning the internet" (Score:4, Funny)
Google [google.com] or Wiki [wikipedia.org], Ctrl-F, "astronaut", Enter.
Parent