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Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
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Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a copypasta floating around - badum tish - giving an account of a particular US astronaut - https://futurism.com/the-byte/russia-threatens-nasa-astronau... - who caused this and a lot of other major problems. Accusations of misinformation, yada yada yada, but it sounds like it might have been a case of the roommate from hell, only in space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vXdRUIZ_EM whoops
For a highly trained astronaut that "oops" in the video seemed extremely careless.
My most charitable interpretation is that the astronaut thought the bag was attached to a tether given that it had a clip - which sadly wasn't attached to anything.
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it's a bit light on details. But they do point out the most important facts, namely what gender the astronauts are and that it has not been officially confirmed whether the tool box contained a 10mm wrench. Personally, that's everything I needed to know about the situation.
If you've ever worked on a modern car, you'd know the importance of the 10mm wrench. Maybe they had some Toyota guys consult on the ISS.
I love 10mm wrenches so much I bought a Japanese motorcycle :P I do so much better with whole numbers than fractions.
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#54Anyone got a link to an official report detailing what happened? The article is kinda light on details, but I assume this is a major mishap that can only happen if multiple things go wrong simultaneously? Everything m they do up there is a precisely choreographed dance so it would be interesting to read a technical report on that.
Yes it's a bit light on details. But they do point out the most important facts, namely what gender the astronauts are and that it has not been officially confirmed whether the tool box contained a 10mm wrench. Personally, that's everything I needed to know about the situation.
The 10mm reference is a meme. It is the most common size when working on a vehicle and is frequently misplaced.
Although it's kind of strange to see that type of writing in USA Today... I thought I was reading Jalopnik or something.
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#55There is a rumour that several years ago some tools were dropped on purpose. Because astronaut did not liked to stay on orbit, and he/she wanted to return to Earth ahead of schedule.
In 2008, another tool bag was dropped.
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#56> "The white, satchel-like tool bag slipped away from two astronauts during a rare, all-female spacewalk."
Could have left that in drafts
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#57Kind of a shame they don't still have an MMU at the station for this kind of smash and grab job.
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you've ever worked on a modern car, you'd know the importance of the 10mm wrench. Maybe they had some Toyota guys consult on the ISS.
I love 10mm wrenches so much I bought a Japanese motorcycle :P I do so much better with whole numbers than fractions.
As well as the 10mm wrench, you may find it useful to have a 1cm spanner.
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#59Tool bag “valued at $100,000”? What could possibly be in there?
Probably just regular stuff but of a high enough quality that we'd consider sending it to space? Defense and space equipment procurement is usually a lot more expensive than normal because 1) companies exploit the bidding system 2) you really don't want a screw driver that fails when you're re-attaching a solar panel to something floating in LEO since the run to the local Lowe's is going to be quite expensive.
And also, a lot of it is low volume stuff, and fixed costs in manufacturing are huge. The reason the tools you buy at the home improvement store are cheap is because the fixed costs are spread out over thousands to millions of units. Design/labor/fixturing/tooling/etc can be brutal for low volumes.
If you want to build a single Lego, the tooling could cost you hundreds of thousand of dollars.
Re: Astronauts drop tool bag into orbit that you can see with binoculars
#60Tool bag “valued at $100,000”? What could possibly be in there?
Probably just regular stuff but of a high enough quality that we'd consider sending it to space? Defense and space equipment procurement is usually a lot more expensive than normal because 1) companies exploit the bidding system 2) you really don't want a screw driver that fails when you're re-attaching a solar panel to something floating in LEO since the run to the local Lowe's is going to be quite expensive.
There's an old "just so" story that still pops up from time to time about how US astronauts found that normal ball point pens don't work without gravity, so NASA spent $bignum to have a contractor develop a "space pen." But the Russians used a pencil! Haha, look at these inefficient US government programs!
Except it turns out that (a) the US did originally use pencils; and (b) the last things you want floating around a space station is conductive, flammable grit. Like pencil graphite.
SciAm story about this: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n...