Dropped Shuttle Toolbag Filmed From Earth 389
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.
Floating corpses (Score:5, Interesting)
So does that mean if an astronaut got disconnected and floated off, we'd be able to see them orbiting or flying off too? Kind of morbid.
Re:Check out the sexism on the youtube video (Score:1, Interesting)
Um, no, this female astronaut is actually quite smart, unlike Sarah Palin. If Palin had been a dude, we still would've said "hey, look at the stupid person". Having tits doesn't mean that when you say something stupid, people will just ignore it.
Don't like us liberals commenting on SP? Then stop bringing her up.
Re:That's no moon! (Score:5, Interesting)
That's a tool bag!
Sigh...
There go another set of $10,000 government hammers -- not to mention the $24,000 socket set :(
(Ha. As an aside, I wonder how much that tool bag really cost when you factor in its mass during launch.)
Dark Star (Score:5, Interesting)
Send the shuttle to retrieve it (Score:2, Interesting)
The Tool Tray NASA clip... (Score:3, Interesting)
I was watching some sort of NASA clip that showed a tool tray for on-orbit work. It locked the tools down until you plugged the lanyard from your suit into the tool, then the only way to get the lanyard off the tool was to lock it back into the tray..
Guess that wasn't in use this time.
Re:Send the shuttle to retrieve it (Score:3, Interesting)
The nature of those reasons are left as an exercise for Dr _Banzai. (Hints: delta-v, ranging.)
Re:How? (Score:3, Interesting)
Incorrect. Had she not imparted momentum to it by shoving it aside, it would have stayed right there and not moved, at least in any time frame likely to be relevant to the ISS personnel.
Re:That's no moon! (Score:3, Interesting)
You try exposing your socket set to -269C and see how well it works. The steel will become brittle and shatter.
Re:Send the shuttle to retrieve it (Score:3, Interesting)
This is only partly true. The impetus she could have given the toolbag, even deliberately, is no more than whatever her arm can generate. A Major League Pitcher can manage maybe 100 mph (45 m/s) with a baseball, much less with a backpack sized toolbox.
I doubt this woman could have come close to that by accident. Which means maybe a few meters per second velocity differential at the beginning. Which the Shuttle could quite easily have matched.
Letting it go for a while gives it time to move around its new orbit enough that the Shuttle would require multiple burns to match orbits (not because the initial impetus was high, but because you need to change to an orbit that reaches the toolbag's new orbital position and velocity when the toolbag gets to there). Which makes it prohibitive.
This, of course, ignoring the fact that it's mostly silly to try to recover a toolbag in a situation like that, unless it's clearly going to smack into the ISS or Shuttle in an orbit or three....
Re:That's no moon! (Score:5, Interesting)
LOL Oh if I only had mod points.
A Snap-on 22 piece ratchet kit is over 500 bucks. Hell a tool box from them is over $300!
Re:That's no moon! (Score:3, Interesting)
The tool that finally got the jammed Skylab solar "wings" to unfold was a $10 crowbar from the local hardware store in Florida.
Serious question... (Score:2, Interesting)
How do we know the thing in the wmv was, in fact, the tool bag? I assume it's tracked or something (based on known orbit/velocity/somethingelseaboutwhichIknownothing)? I.e. we know it should have been there, then? And lo, something was there, then, so that was it?
Re:That's no moon! (Score:3, Interesting)
Not the worst accident that's happened due to a dropped tool [encycloped...kansas.net].