Tool bag lost in space now tracked by garbage watchers A tool bag is orbiting Earth. No, this isn't an elaborate Elon Musk joke. The bag entered orbit during a spacewalk conducted by NASA astronauts and International Space Station residents Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara on November 1. During their almost seven-hour space stroll, during which they replaced bearings on a sun- …
why don't the bags have velcro or some other form of attachment that is mandatory to use
They do. I guess the trouble is that in order to get around outside the ISS, the bag needs to be constantly attached to then detached from anchor points as the astronaut moves down the spacecraft, and it was while being detached that the bag was lost due to clumsiness. Given that the space suits worn during an EVA have been described as less like suits and more like personal spacecraft, I think we can forgive the astronaut concerned for their lack of agility.
> String. Everything can be solved with string.
As was demonstrated by Raymond Baxter on Tomorrow's World, courtesy of The Goodies:
https://goodies.fandom.com/wiki/It_Might_as_Well_Be_String
(Sorry, couldn't find a YT clip of that bit: the string song is easy to find, but around here we want the sciencey bit)
There *IS* a mandatory attachment system. There's a set of tethers, and you're required to attach the tether to the crewlock in the new location, then detach the old tether.
The tethers are actually quite easy to use, so it's not onerous to perform the procedure.
Unfortunately (IMHO) they're all the same color, so I think that results in a non-zero possibility of doing the procedure in the wrong order because you can't easily distinguish which is actually the "old" tether and which is the "new" tether.
When I've had to use similar two-tether systems, the colouring has never mattered. Because each tether is either attached or in your hand in the process of being moved. If you only have one anchor point, both tethers attach there. When you move, it's one tether at a time - doesn't matter which way around.
It just gets very tedious.
But with these bags, I expected the tether to attach to the crew/suit rather than the spacecraft, so wouldn't need much tether moving.
Ta for that - I know his "Sector General" stories but haven't seen this one.
Hmm, Amazon: second result for "deadly litter" is called "Sanicat", but no indication if that litter is deadly in and of itself or is just highly recommended as the litter to use when the target is "deadly".
> For West pondians, spanner != wrench, a wrench has a camming action and usually knurling for grip
Is there another pond?
You are describing a "pipe wrench" aka 'Stillson' wrench. These "can" be used on bolts/nuts, but are heavy expensive and awkward. For over 100 years the USA/Canada market has had open-end and box-end (and combo) wrenches, socket wrenches (often with ratchet), 'Crescent(r)' adjustable parallel-jaw wrenches, strap/chain wrenches, Mummer wenches, and many others. (My latest 'Crescent wrench' is branded "Klein" and made by Irega in Spain....)
Of course true cavemen use only $2 slop-joint pliers for ANY nut.
Not a cyclist then? It's impossible to do basic modern bicycle maintenance without 3 or 4 allen keys nowadays in addition to a couple of spanners... Then there's the special tools for removing the bottom bracket and cassette, and for those a bit more modern than me, a brake bleed kit...
I'm surprised they don't have some sort of "space drone" that they can operate in the vicinity of the ISS. It would be useful for inspecting the exterior of the station or any docked vehicles without necessitating a space walk, as well as potentially retrieving wayward tool bags, if equipped with a suitable grabber.
Possibly deemed not worth the risk. Any time you have something maneuvering near the ISS under its own power, you risk a stuck thruster or maneuvering error causing it to crash into part of the station. This is also why supply vehicles don't dock under their own power, they park within reach of the Canadarm and are retrieved.
> This is also why supply vehicles don't dock under their own power, they park within reach of the Canadarm and are retrieved.
The Russian and US vehicles all need the helping hand, certainly, but the ESA ATV manages on its own, as described for the ATV Jules Verne: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/ATV/Europe_s_automated_ship_docks_to_the_ISS
Although the ATV isn't as good at getting materials back down from the ISS as the other vehicles can be.
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