Astronaut to Attempt Spacewalk Record

MattSparkes writes "Two residents of the International Space Station will take a spacewalk tomorrow to try to jam a stuck antenna on a docked cargo ship back into place. The spacewalk will set a US record of over 65 hours spacewalk experience. During the spacewalk, the astronauts will "use a hammer and a chisel to try to pound the antenna into place". Precision engineering at its very best I'm sure you'll agree."

A Hammer?

[Architect_sasyr]

They're going to use a Hammer and a Chisel... I thought these pieces of equipment were highly delicate...

Apparantly they're more like IBM computers...

Houston...

[Kalendraf]

...we need a bigger hammer!

Bah!

[Masa]

64 hours should be enough for anyone.

It's the Chisel part...

[kaysan]

I can understand the practical applications of, and use for, packing a hammer aboard a space cargo flight, but i can't for the life of me imagine what they would do with a chisel?.. maybe they hid it inside of a cake?

Re:A Hammer?

[Anonymous Coward]

well, at least it is not a hammer and a sickle, now that the MIR has gone the way of the dodo...

besides, it would be unamerican.

Please...

[FlyByPC]

It's not a hammer.
It's a highly specialized kinetic-energy inertial impartion implement.

After all, it cost far more than a mere hammer...

Just A Hammer and Chisel?

[Zeek40]

Did they forget about the BB gun, pepper spray, 6" knife and rubber tubing? Oh... Wrong astronaut...

What was that saying?

[Centurix]

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Imagine spending 65 hours playing whack-a-mole.

Replace Alpha Echo 35 unit prior to failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuck Antenna? It's not the AE-35 unit that's failed, by any chance?

Spacewalk record? I'm unimpressed.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

Now if he was breaking the moonwalking record, that'd be more newsworthy.

Re:Houston...

[MrFlibbs]

This just reinforces an old mechanical engineering maxim:

      "If you have a large enough hammer, anything can be made to fit."

Re:What was that saying?

[Rob T Firefly]

The hammer in my house is helpfully labelled "Emergency Repair Procedure #1" in sharpie on the handle.

Stop.

[Rob T Firefly]

Hammer Time.

Re:A Hammer?

[jellomizer]

Well they cant be that delicate being in space where objects could hit them at hundreds of miles per hour. A persision hammer strike is probably nothing to it. (perhaps just enough to put the chizle in place.)

Re:Hustin, we have a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they dispose of the diapers afterwards? Do they send them out the airlock?

They send them to Uranus.

I'm so very sorry.

Re:What was that saying?

[Centurix]

haha, if I hadn't posted in here already this would've got a +1 funny. I get this picture of an eager astronaut waiting for the mole to appear, hitting it and flying away into orbit shouting "damn you Newton!"

Over kill

[GigG]

The chisel is over kill. You only need to tools in aerospace. A hammer and a roll of duct tape. If it moves and it isn't supposed to use the duct tape, if it doesn't move and is supposed to use the hammer.

Re:A US record? Yawn

[GigG]

Of course the Russians had more space walk experience. They had to keep in shape because there was always a pretty good chance they were going to have to walk home from the Mir.

Re:Please...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't actually think they spend $20000 on a hammer, $30000 on a toilet seat do you?