Astronauts Fix Space Station With Toothbrush
Ron Czapala
Posts: 2,418
http://news.yahoo.com/spacewalking-astronauts-fix-space-station-toothbrush-165844657--abc-news-tech.html
A $100 billion space station saved by a simple $3 toothbrush? It was the brainstorm of astronauts Sunita Williams and Akihido Hoshide and NASA engineers on the ground: a tool to clean a bolt that gave them so much trouble during a marathon 8-hour spacewalk last week.
They were trying to replace an electrical switching unit, but on Thursday they couldn't bolt it to the outside of the station.
What to do if there is no hardware store in the neighborhood and the next supply ship is months away? Build it yourself -- so they attached a simple toothbrush to a metal pole and voila! They were able to clean out the bolt's socket today and finish the job. Shades of Apollo 13 -- when engineers threw parts on a table and brainstormed a solution, which saved the crew.
A $100 billion space station saved by a simple $3 toothbrush? It was the brainstorm of astronauts Sunita Williams and Akihido Hoshide and NASA engineers on the ground: a tool to clean a bolt that gave them so much trouble during a marathon 8-hour spacewalk last week.
They were trying to replace an electrical switching unit, but on Thursday they couldn't bolt it to the outside of the station.
What to do if there is no hardware store in the neighborhood and the next supply ship is months away? Build it yourself -- so they attached a simple toothbrush to a metal pole and voila! They were able to clean out the bolt's socket today and finish the job. Shades of Apollo 13 -- when engineers threw parts on a table and brainstormed a solution, which saved the crew.
Comments
Gee, That's how I fix my 18 year old Suburban every day.
(well, I don't use the brass brush on my teeth...yet).
Jim
On the other hand, is it really that big of a deal that someone had a problem and then solved it with items that they had available? Would the ISS and the people aboard have been lost if not for a toothbrush?
@
I'm sure it wasn't someone....it was a t least two highly schooled and trained astronauts and a very large team of engineers at NASA plus who knows how many simulations before they gave the "ISS, you are clear to use the brush" order. Granted, the stakes are pretty high and failure is highly visible and potentially life threatening but it's something many farmers (by themselves) have done with their John Deere for decades when they need to get those crops in!
Ingenuity should be celebrated but it shouldn't be marveled and unexpected from people.
ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION STORY: A pair of spacewalking astronauts cleaned, greased and finally coaxed a jammed bolt into position on Wednesday (September 5), restoring the International Space Station's power system. The spacewalk by NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide was the second in a week to replace a key part of the station's power system.
The astronauts were able to remove the faulty 220-pound (100-kg) device, known as a main bus switching unit, during a spacewalk last Thursday, but were unable to bolt a replacement into position.
While engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston mulled over repair options, Williams and Hoshide spent the weekend fashioning tools to clean the bolt and its receptacle of metal shavings and other debris believed to be causing the problem.
The homemade tools included a wire brush formed from a spare cable and another fashioned out of a toothbrush.
Toting their makeshift brushes and bags of tools, Williams and Hoshide left the station's airlock shortly after 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) and headed to where they had tethered the new power distributor into position on the station's metal framework.
The station, a project of 15 countries that flies about 250 miles (402 km) above Earth, is staffed by rotating crews of six astronauts and cosmonauts and used for dozens of medical, materials science, physics and other experiments.
Here's one. I was installing a solar hot water service the other day. I had the solar panels covered with a car cover so they didn't overheat, and I had my cordless screwdriver. And climbing down the ladder the ladder fell and I was stuck on the roof. No mobile phone. No one home for another 6 hours and the sun was hot and I needed to go to work in 3 hours. What would the astronauts do? What would MacGyver do?
Yes, I thought about jumping. Yes, I thought about jumping wrapped up in the car cover. But in the end, I undid one of the roofing hex bolts with the screwdriver, tied the corner of the car cover under that, screwed it back in, twisted the car cover into a makeshift rope and pseudo abseiled down the drainpipe.
I'll bet everyone on this forum could have got off the roof safely. Or fixed that ISS bolt. Or even helped contribute something really practical to the Apollo 13 problem.
Years ago I was on my garage roof checking the shingles after a storm. Another storm was approaching and the wind blew the ladder down.
I had no tools, no cell phone - nothing. Didn't even have a shirt on.
It was a weekday morning and no one was around. Thought about jumping too but decided not to risk breaking a leg.
Luckily I spied a neighbor picking up branches for the storm and yelled for help.
That incident prompted me to install a stainless steel eyebolt on the garage so I could tie the ladder to it.
And the cell phone goes with me now!