Let's face it. . .
these guys kick ass.
Hells Yeah!
Space shuttle Endeavour mission specialists Drew Feustel and Mike Fincke earlier today ventured outside the International Space Station for an epic eight hours and seven minutes - the sixth-longest spacewalk in history. Drew Feustel (top) and Mike Fincke conduct the second spacewalk of the STS-134 mission. Photo: NASA TV The …
Actually the missing bolts are for the SARJ covers. The Solar Alpha Rotary Joint is a huge pivot for the solar arrays, so they can aim at the Sun, and it needed lubing too. What's truly amazing is that Spanky managed to grab quite a few of the bolts that floated away in the bulky spacesuit mitts w/o batting them away. That's a "golden glove" award right there. These bolts were supposed to be held captive by some washers, and these failed and escaped too.
that a magnetic mitt might have been more useful. Or maybe, a magnet on a stick.
Or are these bolts not magnetic ? Made of aluminum, maybe ? In any case, although it is a shame that we now have yet another piece of space debris whizzing around at high speed, a spacewalk is no walk in the park. And eight hours at a time is more than anyone should be subject to.
You try 8 hours, 7 mins in one of those suits, fighting against the air pressure of the suit every time you try to move (and yes, that includes grabbing things), without a second of a break. It's not like an 8-hour drive, where you'll likely make a couple of stops for fuel, have a coffee, sandwich, pee, whatever. Sure, these guys have drinks handy, and nappies (yum!), but it's still hard work and a constant effort.
An epic undertaking - doesn't matter if it's the longest or not.
I've always wondered if some kind of net would help when this kind of thing occured.
Of if some common sense could prevail and anything designed to be worked on on weightlessness was either snap-open or had tethers on the retainers.
It was a good save considering how bulky the suits are, but he shouldn't have had to do it in the first place (or had the opportunity to drop them).
They did have tethers. For some reaons, they didn't work.
A net as a backup would seem like a nice idea, but you'd need something to secure the net to the cover. Given weight considerations, I doubt it's made of steel, so magnets are out. That means you'd need some kind of glue, and I don't know that anyone's tested blue-tak in space, nor how the residue left behind would react with the various structural elements it could be attached to, in an environment that combines extreme heat, extreme cold and significant amounts of radiation.