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Astronaut loses space tools when grease gun mis-fires
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This may be one of the more embarrassing moments in space. During a spacewalk to repair a joint on the International Space Station (ISS), astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper reached into a work bag to discover that a grease gun had leaked inside the bag, coating the inside of the bag and work tools with grease.
When she reached inside, her gloves also picked up a coating of the slick Braycote grease, specially-designed for use in vacuum environments. Mission control directed her to use a dry wipe to clean off her gloves and then clean off other items.
During the clean-up process, somehow the bag came untethered and drifted away, out of Stefanyshyn-Piper's reach. The bag, which weighs about thirty pounds loaded, contained two grease guns, a putty knife, some wipes, a box, and trash bags.
The bag, which is about twenty inches tall and less than a foot wide, is now space debris. It's currently floating more than two miles ahead of the space station and the docked Endeavour space shuttle, now moving on its own flight path.
Mission managers now are analyzing the bag's predicted orbits and any potential for impacting future spaceflights. Other objects have been lost in space before. During the days of the Russian Mir space station, large trash bags filled with rubbish were routinely tossed overboard, left to drift until their orbit decayed and the items burned up in Earth re-entry.
In 1965, the first American spacewalker, Ed White, lost a glove. The glove stayed in orbit for about a month.
Despite yesterday's work accident, Stefanyshyn-Piper and astronaut team-mate Steve Bowen completed the arduous task of working on the rotating space station joint. They worked out a way to share tools, including grease guns, in Bowen's tool tote.
Here's the video of how the tool bag became "lost in space." The actual accidental deployment occurs at about 5:02 in the video.
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