astronaut loses $100,000 tool bag during spacewalk

[hemmjo]

$4.49 piece of paracord could have kept that bag within reach. That is what I use when I need several tools up on a ladder.

[hemmjo]

Man on the moon Is a question of best practice, In 1969 ships still ran on steam, ....snip... Just think we Brits could have beat the US to the moon.
....

OUCH.... that hurt ....I fell off my chair laughing. You Brits also could have won that one war back in the late 1700's also, but you didn't.


You cannot be serious? There are so many errors in your thinking.

Any engineer in all honesty will tell you that ships have NEVER run on steam. Things have run on coal, wood, fuel oil, or nuclear power for years. Ships or trains or automobiles or farm equipment or factories etc. have never on steam. Steam is simply the media used to transfer heat energy from any source to rotational mechanical power through a piston/cylinder, or a turbine mechanism.

Jet engines have been around since 150BC. If you are talking about jet turbine engines they are a bit newer. Serious development taking place in the early 1900's and began flying in the 1940's. YES, jet engine designs are still being developed and improved. They are better now than they were in 1969. They will continue to improve.

The same is true for internal combustion engines. They are constantly improved and made smaller, use less fuel, more power, more reliable.

It is the nature of mankind to seek better ways to do things. We do not always succeed. Sometimes we take a step backward. Sometimes "we" do really stupid things. But then it is easy to look back and see the errors made over the years.

[Ralphxyz]

How does a bag drop in zero gravity?

[hemmjo]

Well, the is gravity there. Gravity is every where. They are in a situation where many forces involved. The Earth, Sun , Moon, etc, all have gravity. Those forces, along with speed relative to all of those forces are balanced. Any movement that caused the bag to change speed disrupted that delicate balance. They could not chase after it or risk floating away themselves.

Dropped is not the best word to describe what happened. But then people who write news people are not the best writers. Most of us, myself included, often use words incorrectly.

[mklotz]

How does a bag drop in zero gravity?

The short answer is: It isn't in zero gravity. Mathematically, the distortion of space-time we call gravity extends from the parent mass all the way out to infinity decreasing as the inverse square as one moves away from the mass.

The rotational motion of the satellite exactly balances the force of gravity at the satellite's height. If the speed of the bag exactly matches that of the ISS, it will orbit along with it. Change the speed of the bag slightly (e.g., as by losing grip while moving it) and it will want to move to a new orbit consistent with its new velocity. Once it reaches that new orbit height it will remain there in orbit.

[CharlesWaugh]

The big problem is that now there's but one MORE piece of space-junk to keep an eye on so it doesn't obliterate some satellite or spacecraft. Stuff in orbit travels gazillions of miles per second (gazillion is my own Official Unit of speed that is f - a - s - t - !)

Here's an article about a paint fleck impact on a window os a spacecraft.
https://www.popsci.com/paint-chip-li...e%20of%20metal.

[mklotz]

The big problem is that now there's but one MORE piece of space-junk to keep an eye on so it doesn't obliterate some satellite or spacecraft. Stuff in orbit travels gazillions of miles per second (gazillion is my own Official Unit of speed that is f - a - s - t - !)

Here's an article about a paint fleck impact on a window os a spacecraft.
https://www.popsci.com/paint-chip-li...e%20of%20metal.

The bag doesn't have an orbit maintenance engine or computer to control it. Its orbit will eventually decay until it burns up in the atmosphere. Until then, NASA will track it and hopefully avoid collisions.

For the ISS ninety minute orbit your gazillion translates to about 17,650 mph.

[Toolmaker51]

How does a bag drop in zero gravity?

It indeed drops.
The difficulty, predicting which direction that will be...........

[Elizabeth Greene]

You dropped it now go get it. If he has a jet pack it shouldn't be a problem as long as he reaches the bag before he runs out of tether.

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.

[Elizabeth Greene]

Its orbit will eventually decay until it burns up in the atmosphere.

Assuming 15 kilos of mass and a drag cross section of 0.5 square meters it should re-enter the atmosphere in 317 days. That's a size estimate based on my tool bag here. If it's larger than that, say a full square meter, that number cuts in half.

They have another reboost scheduled between now and the end of the month that should put it safely below the station's orbit.