Spacewalking astronaut drops toolbag Space shuttle Endeavour mission specialist Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper yesterday dropped her toolbag as she and Steve Bowen worked outside the International Space Station, in the process consigning to oblivion "two grease guns, scrapers, several wipes and tethers and some tool caddies". Bowen and Stefanyshyn-Piper exited the ISS …
Oh great! Send a woman into space and what does she do? Drops her tool bag when startled by a greese gun discharge, thus derailing a multi-million dollar project. I wonder if she would have dropped her purse in a similar circumstance. Did she urinate in her suit? Either way, now the universe has yet more floating trash and our country, in the name of "equality" (what a joke) and equal opportunity, has yet another failed mission.
I wasn't impressed or convinced forty years ago and neither am I now. Equal rights? How about equal responsibility, ability, experience, judgement, cool under pressure, proven track record and substance before demands for equality?
It was really funny. I know i'll be in trouble for this, but what the hell. The seconds immediately prior to the daft bint offloading the toolbox looked exactly like a lost lippy rifle through the handbag type panic.
No respect for toolboxes, and no use with a grease gun. Would have been better at making tea.
Im no sexist and am happy for the little darlings to try their hand at all sorts of manly things......
but this is what happens if you let women into space AND allow them to take their handbags on spacewalks!
Women are forever filling their bags with useless crap, then allowing it to explode out at inopportune moments.....
'grease gun' my arse! space lipstick more like....
Ill get my coat.........
If this woman was friends with Lisa "Pampers" Nowak if memory servers When she was arrested, she was carrying a wig, a steel mallet, some duct tape, and a knife( or as OJ calls it, an overnight bag) Maybe this Astronaut was just helping her friend to ditch evidence, Lets face it if they are not going to be getting it back unless it smashes throught he shuttle next time round.
What a bunch of sexists we have on board here. How can one tell? Replace "woman" with "black" or some other superficial distinguishing factor, then tell me the statements wouldn't be considered racist. Even as a joke it stopped being funny years ago.
And I'll try to refrain from the obvious: http://www.clichequest.com/index.php?pos=328
The person fucked up not because they were a woman, but because they were just too stupid or hurried (as an individual) to attach a tether.
I assume the engineers DID provide a tether for the toolkit? Because if they didn't, then the real fault lies with them. Not to mention creating a grease gun that doesn't work right in a vacuum.
"Did she urinate in her suit?"
She will probably have urinated, although probably not quite into her suit. Astronauts spacewalking (and even during launch and reentry) where what is tastefully described as a 'Maximum Absorbency Garment' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_Absorbency_Garment), basically an adult nappy to absorb urine (it will absorb faeces as well, although they generally wait until getting back inside to do that)...
Otherwise, it could make it a darn uncomfortable 7 hours or so if you needed a piss after a couple of them!
" "Dropped" In zero G? "
<physics lesson>
But they're not in zero G, in orbit around the Earth. It's the Earth's gravitational field that is KEEPING the shuttle, astronauts and toolbag in orbit, otherwise they would all move in a straight line ...
They are all in freefall (like skydivers) towards the Earth - that's why they APPEAR to be weightless.
</physics lesson>
... with the chalk in the pocket.
"Considering the difficulty of maintenance, it might have been a good idea to design this Solar Alpha Rotary Joint to not need a periodic lube job."
They did. Their design failed. And since banter is no loger allowed here due to the bra-burners getting tetchy, ill get back on script: I expect it was designed by a man. More women in engineering please.
I want to know what the inertial force of this toolbag is.
More to the point, I want to know just how fast that grease gun is going and whether or not it stands a chance of punching a hole through the side of a satellite or the window of the Shuttle in future orbits.
And how long will it take for the lost items to become shootings stars ? The Shuttle works in low Earth orbit if I'm not mistaken - anything that has mass and no means of maintaining its orbit will plunge back down to the surface in due time. So how long for this bag ?
OK lets get real here, I am a man and would have to think more than twice before going out on a "spacewalk" never mind having the "balls" to even take lift off in the shuttle. Add that to the fact of fiddling about with handtools in a pair of space gloves, I really think the girl needs some sympathy.
She screwed up, plain and simple and acknowledged it - not a big deal. Mistakes happen and this is not gender specific. But she deserves the same criticism if any, that a man would for a similar screw-up. The video clearly shows she forgot about a lack of tethering and whipped out the bag in reflex. Also, everything cannot be tethered, the bag was in a larger envelop that was tethered.
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