A female astronaut lost one of the largest items ever on a spacewalk recently, after she accidentally let go of her toolkit.
The astronaut had been performing a spacewalk at the time, in order to fix a faulty solar panel.
While working on the panel, Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper let go of her tool bag, as a grease gun that was inside exploded.
With space being, well, space, the bag floated leaving Stefanyshyn-Piper helpless to anything, except mutter, "Oh, great."
Little, big hiccup
Eventually the solar panel was fixed, but it took a further six hours as she had to share tools with another astronaut.
Speaking about the gaff, Stefanyshyn-Piper explained: "Despite my little hiccup, or major hiccup, I think we did a good job out there."
A further three spacewalks are planned. Because of this, Mission Control is assessing the impact the space junk will have on the walks. And they're maybe having second thoughts about Stefanyshyn-Piper's accident-prone DIY skills.
Your comments (2) Click to add a new comment
lavalamp
November 19th 2008
2. Stfanshyn-Piper, I'd hate to try and sign that name if I was drunk.
I wish I was drunk when I read this story.
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jshez
November 19th 2008
1. It was always going to be a woman wasn't it. Please don't let females perform DIY tasks under ANY gravitational conditions, let alone in space.
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