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a bag of spanners whizzing around at 25000 mph in the shuttles orbit... houston we have a problem....or so they ,as a fleck of paint peeling from the shuttle can pierce a space suit apparently
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unsurprisingly, people make a living out of tracking the bigger bits...
tinyurl.com/6lz5yo
Edited by Another John H on 19/11/2008 at 18:27
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It seems it was a woman Astronaut that lost them, (was it accidental or did she lose HIS tools on purpose!),
(anyway, why aren't they called Lass-tronauts?)
edit: better put loads a smileys in!!! ;-) ;-)
Edited by billy25 on 19/11/2008 at 19:21
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Now, now; no female mechanics/handbag jokes - or she'll throw a hissy-fit...
Haven't Nasa heard of lanyards.... [And the ISS has grease nipples...!!]
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>>Haven't Nasa heard of lanyards....
Yes, they definitely have - staff have been fired from NASA's facilities for not tethering individual tools during space shuttle payload integration.
>>[And the ISS has grease nipples...!!]
I bet some hoops had to be jumped through at design time to allow both grease and a part which needs regular maintenance. Usually both are banned outright unless top level permission is obtained from the mission.
Even simple operations like bolting together parts become problematic when the parts must be absolutely clean - not a drop of oil is usually allowed - stainless steel on stainless steel which is OK with some oil or grease, locks solid and galls when clean.
The whole operation looks like a complete bodge. Even ground based activities during the build of flight equipment need to have published and vetted procedures - there's no way such uncontrolled activity with a bag full of bits flapping about would be allowed on the ground!
That the grease gun "exploded" possibly means that a venting hole had either not been drilled, or had become blocked - again, such schoolboy errors are normally dealt with during either the preliminary design review, or the critical design review. Someone has dropped the ball!
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Looks like the sort of thing that would happen on The Simpsons
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NC
If it wasn't on the Beeb, then I would've dismissed it as a hoax.
A bag of loose spanners...! What happened to sexy tool belts? Or a chest plate with magnets? [Obviously more problematic for those astronauts with pre-fitted facilities...]
As for the greased joints; I though Nasa invented Teflon liners exactly for that purpose? It must be very difficult to cope with constant temperature variations running into hundreds of degrees - but grease?? [And how does the original grease deplete? Rain and oxidation seem unlikely...]
So build the grease gun [looked more like a cartridge gun] with a bag of grease; reduce it's containment pressure to 30kpa absolute and then, when in space, all you need is a reliable valve to deploy it - at no other time is it's pressure above ambient, so it can only implode at worst.
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>>Or a chest plate with magnets?
Magnets and even magnetic materials are also frequently either forbidden, or strictly controlled - it's usually necessary to demonstrate there's no other acceptable solution before they're allowed. The reason being that even residual magnetism can disrupt sensitive instruments, as an obvious example, a magnetometer.
>>but grease??
Teflon is OK for some joints, hinges for sprung one-shot camera doors being an obvious example, but there are always applications which push the envelope in rubbing speed, load, or acceptable friction levels.
>>reduce it's containment pressure to 30kpa absolute
Again, pressure vessels of any kind are usually avoided where any feasible alternative is available. As an example of the problems this causes, ordinary CFRP/aluminium honeycomb sandwich panels can't be used, a special honeycomb with inter-cell venting holes must be used. On a manned (or reusable vehicle) mission, any pressure vessel becomes classified as a "Potentially Fracture Critical Item" this means that expensive pressure vessel justification calculations need to be carried out during the design phase, and depending upon the details of the design, further checking, handling and usage procedures may follow on from this. In short, it's something to avoid unless you're well and truly cornered.
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Ah well; if magnets are out, then it'll have to be Velcro..
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Ah so.
Since we seem to be in space, let me ask a question I tried to ask a while back, but that was brutally censored by some nameless jerk: what do people think is the reason for the smell of 'frying steak' or 'welding a motorbike' that astronauts say they notice on the outside of their suits when they come into the ship or station from space?
Space contains small numbers of molecules and fast particles. Is the smell from those, or is it the result of molecules of spacecraft skin half-burnt during passage through the upper atmosphere sticking to the astronauts' suits when they are outside the craft?
Is it space that smells of steak, or the galaxy, or the solar system, or just the astronauts' perspiration?
I don't expect anyone to know. But I think it's interesting.
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Would magnets work in outer space? I though magnets were governed by the earths magnetic poles?
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>>Would magnets work in outer space?
Yes.
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I don't expect anyone to know.
... but I did hope someone might have a thought, or like me find the whole bizarre allegation entertaining.
Surely there must be a mad scientist (NC) or hard-vacuum science fiction buff (oilrag) among us somewhere?
BUMP!
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To answer Lud's question, the fried steak smell is a faint echo of God's seventh-day barbecue - I believe beer is sometimes also detected...
On a semantic note - is it possible to 'drop' something in outer space (schoolboy humour excepted)?
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>>it'll have to be Velcro..
Velcro certainly wouldn't be allowed near optical instruments because of particle shedding and contamination - I don't know if it could be used for more general duty.
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... "staff have been fired from NASA's facilities" ......
just like the tools? :-)
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A car I was in as a passenger was hit by a dropped tool. It was one of those sort of handle things used for winding artic trailers up and down. Heavy thing. I saw it bouncing down the road towards us but the driver was unable to avoid it. The damage to the car was substantial but could have been much worse if it had decided to bounce towards the windscreen.
I can't help but extrapolate that damage which probably involved a closing speed of 50 or so mph with the effect of such an object hitting a space shuttle or similar at thousands of mph. I know you don't find too many HGVs in space but I'm sure you see what I mean.......
Houston.....we have a problem......
Edit - sorry Zookeeper, bit behind the game as usual am I not.......
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 21/11/2008 at 16:53
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