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."

Re:A US record? Yawn

[Chacham]

This mind-set isn't new - I recall learning about the space race in grade school and god help you if you remembered who Yuri Gagarin was but forgot that first American guy in space, whoever he was.

Of course. Because he went on to other things. His name was "Alan Shepard", which should ring a bell in most Americans. He also walked on the moon.

well...

[jemminger]

if anyone actually RTFA, you'd know that the ship with the faulty antenna is a trash barge that's going to burn up in the atmosphere as soon as they can hammer the antenna out of the way, or cut it off. i'm sure they wouldn't try to fix the ISS's communications antennae with a hammer and chisel.

Not what it sounds like

[slasho81]

It's not a continuous spacewalk record. And it's also not an accumulative spacewalk record. From the article:

Lopez-Alegria has already spent more than 61 hours spacewalking during his astronaut career. This spacewalk, his 10th, should add about six more hours to his total - making him the US astronaut with the most spacewalks performed and the most total time spent walking in space. Only Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyov has spent more time outside the hatch, racking up 82 hours of spacewalking time.