astronaut loses $100,000 tool bag during spacewalk

**Frank S** · Nov 14, 2023, 03:50 PM

Originally Posted by Elizabeth Greene

They wouldn't use the "jetpack", they'd just push off to grab it.

They wouldn't do that though, first the tether that keeps them on the worksite is pretty short to keep them within range of useful hand and foot holds. That would prevent them from going any appreciable distance. Second, they still wouldn't do it even if they only had the 50' safety tether on. Why? I mean why besides the possibility that the tether would fail and the whole world would watch as the first astronaut dies on orbit over a lost set of wrenches? The ISS has a bunch of sharp, pointy, hot, and fragile things that would damage or be damaged by an Astronaut and spacesuit. If you listen to EVA audio every transit across the station is carefully planned and has a bunch of "don't touch" and "be aware of" cautions about thing x being fragile and the thing next to it being too hot to touch even through the suit gloves. Careening into the wrong thing could end the ISS mission permanently.

Popping off to grab the kit with the Soyuz or Crew Dragon won't work either; Even if it only took 10 or 20 minutes to depart the station (which would be *very* fast and probably damage the ISS) the kit could easily be more than a kilometer away and neither capsule has an airlock to allow an EVA to grab it.

One of my great granddaughters came up with the best Idea, of all. Simply equip all astronauts with a pocket fishing rod while doing space walks. My Grandson had been feeding her full of fish stories about landing a 10 lb bass with 4 lb test line. using and old Ronco pocket fisherman he found in his mom's closet.

I got to thinking about it. and she made sense just let NASA over engineer a battery powered micro winch with a spring-loaded ejector to propel the line into the sleeves of the suits then the astronauts could make like spidermen, but most would wind up like the guy who lost the world record catch because he fouled his line on the boat prop, while trying to avoid the marine antenna with his pole.