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   Astronauts Lose Another Bolt to Space

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Astronauts Lose Another Bolt to Space
« on: Sep 13^th, 2006, 10:05am »

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(Okay...I can't pass up the opportunity to chat about this. Bolding and red comments are mine. - MS)

Astronauts Lose Another Bolt to Space.
By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronauts working to bring to life a new 17 1/2-ton addition to the international space station lost another bolt to the void during a spacewalk early Wednesday. (First off...this happened TWICE?!!)

The bolt was similar to one that popped off Tuesday and floated free during earlier spacewalk. (Is anyone else out there a little scared that things are 'popping off' our Space Station? I want a refund.)

Steve MacLean of the Canadian Space Agency told Mission Control on Wednesday that he was removing a cover on a crucial rotary joint when one of the four bolts he needed disappeared. (Okay, a question for my Canadian friends here...does this happen because it's so cold up in Canada and your fingers get numb?)

"I did not see it go," MacLean said. "I'm looking to see if anything is floating."

Space debris can be dangerous if it punctures space station walls or spacesuits and can jam crucial mechanisms. However, spacewalkers have a long history of losing things in space. (I'm beginning to see why NASA's having so much trouble.) In July, Discovery spacewalkers lost a 14-inch spatula that floated away. (Let's read that again..."spacewalkers lost a 14-inch spatula"...my question is...why, in the name of all that is holy, is a 14-inch spatula being used OUTSIDE OF THE SPACE SHUTTLE??!!)

There was no indication that the latest missing bolt went into the rotary joint or any other space station mechanisms, and the assumption is it floated away, (Okay....they ASSUME it floated away, eh? Great. Let me remind NASA of the old adage "When you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME".) NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma said. He said that the astronauts simply used three bolts for the task instead of four, and that there shouldn't be a problem with that. (This is the most frightening part of this article. One would think that perhaps NASA would use some of the billions of dollars we fund them with to PACK SOME EXTRA BOLTS!!! I don't know about you, but I put together a swingset a few years ago and it was missing two bolts. I did not let my kids use it until I got replacement bolts for fear of the slide falling off. I'm not feeling too comfortable that there is a 17+ ton Space Station floating around above me missing some bolts and possibly has a spatula wedged in it...)

During Wednesday's six-hour spacewalk, MacLean and astronaut Dan Burbank needed to release and remove 16 locks and six restraints that kept the rotary joint in place during Saturday's launch from the Kennedy Space Center. The ferris-wheel-like rotary joint will allow two solar arrays, once unfurled, to always face the sun as the space station circles Earth.

Those solar arrays will eventually supply a quarter of the space lab's power when it is completed by 2010. (What's powering the other 3/4's of the station, Energizer batteries?)

The astronauts had to remove more than a dozen insulation covers and scores of bolts wearing bulky spacesuit gloves.

On Tuesday, astronaut Joe Tanner lost another bolt during a spacewalk with astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. He asked MacLean to be on the lookout for it Wednesday. (Okay...this is an episode of Punk'd isn't it? Be honest.)

"I've been looking for that bolt all along but I haven't seen it," MacLean said.

Tanner and Piper planned to return for a third spacewalk on Friday.

Before the mission, NASA managers and the astronauts had warned that the spacewalks could be difficult. The spacewalk was the second of three spacewalks to hook up the new $372 million addition to the space station during Atlantis' 11-day mission. (I guess packing extra bolts would have ballooned that number up to $372,000,000.57)

"For the outside observer, it's going to look boring since the guys aren't going to be moving around a whole lot," Tanner said before the mission. "What they're doing is so extremely critical, but very repetitive. We will work hard at not getting lulled into boredom or complacency." (Yes, but sheer clumsiness is all right.)

Both Burbank and MacLean made their spacewalk debuts this week. (Really?! Who'd have guessed THAT??!!)

"I just don't want to be real clumsy," Burbank said before the mission. "The first thing I'm going to do is go slow and ease my way into it."

To pump them up for the hard work ahead, Mission Control played "Taking' Care of Business" as their wake-up song.

Engineers have determined that Atlantis' heat shield is in such good shape free from the type of the damage that led to Columbia's disintegration that it is clear for landing at the end of its scheduled mission next Wednesday. (Unless they accidentally lose the keys in outer space.)

MacLean got a chance to informally inspect the shuttle's underside when he posed for a spacewalking photo. (Yeah, that's him standing beside the floating bolt and the spatula.)

"That's about as photogenic as I get," he said. (Enough said.)