Monthly Archives: November 2008

iss, working in space

You Can’t Make a Mistake in Space

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Somebody Will Make a Video of It!

A lost tool bag drifts away from ISS. It got away from astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper) as she was cleaning the inside of the bag after a grease gun inadvertently shot some grease out.
A lost tool bag drifts away from ISS. It got away from astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper) as she was cleaning the inside of the bag after a grease gun inadvertently shot some grease out.

Last week one of the astronauts working on the International Space Station lost track of her toolbag. Apparently her grease gun exploded — something it wasn’t supposed to do.  It got grease all over her helmet camera and gloves.

So, she did what any worker would do, she started to clean the stuff off of her gloves. In the process, the bag came came loose and floated away beyond retrieval. She wasn’t very happy about this, since an exploding grease gun wasn’t in the mission plan.

A lot of folks have made fun of her for this problem, but it’s pretty obvious she was taken by surprise and tried to deal with what could have been a dangerous situation in a calm manner.  (And, I’d like to see all those who are making stupid (and some pretty sexist) jokes about it tell the rest of us about how well they would handle such a mishap in space. )

So, everybody figured that would be the last of the bag.  Well, maybe not so much. Turns out that in space, everyone can hear you mutter when a piece of equipment goes haywire and, if you lose track of a bag (or a camera or anything else that can be tracked by ground-based observers), people will be able to find it. And take movies of it. According to Spaceweather.com, satellite observer Kevin Fetter managed to get a video of the backpack-sized bag on orbit. You can watch it here.  (Note:  the servers at the site are getting slammed… if you can’t get through, give it a few hours until the “storm” passes.)

Working in space poses all kinds of issues that ground-based workers never have to face:  low-gravity, vacuum, the need to wear specialized gear to keep from dying in vacuum, learning to work with extremely specialized tools that need to be made especially for the space environment, and doing all your work with cameras fully trained on you at all times. Every motion you make  needs to be done deliberately and carefully; and every mistake you make is on camera for all time. And now, it appears that if you drop a tool bag, people with really good telescopes and cameras in their backyards will be able to track your loss for quite a while!

astronomy

What Do Kids Want to Know?

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Astronomy and Space Piques Their Interest

Children in Venezuela celebrate astronomy. (Courtesy UNAWE.org)
Children doing an astronomy exercise in Venezuela. (Courtesy UNAWE.org)

I’ve been asked to give talks next year at a several places (including some cruise ships) and I’m using those experiences to help people celebrate the International Year of Astronomy. In addition, I’m creating some podcasts for the IYA’s ongoing 365 Days of Astronomy activity, which should be very cool.

One of the venues where I’m speaking asked me to come up with a program for kids, basically to answer their questions about space and astronomy. Those are always a lot of fun because it’s amazing what questions children will ask. Generally I make a little opening statement, show some really cool pix (and/or animations) from the latest space and astronomy news stories, and then open the floor to questions.

The International Year of Astronomy begins January 1, 2009. Planning for its events has been going on for several years.
The International Year of Astronomy begins January 1, 2009. Planning for its events has been going on for several years.

So, I pretty much know what sorts of questions I’ll get, and I can prepare for those. I went online and did a search on “questions from kids about astronomy” and found some really, really helpful sites. So, for those of you who teach astronomy and/or give talks to the young’uns about those subjects — or, if you ARE a young’un and want to see what other young’uns are asking, here are a few of the ones I ran across. (NOTE: these comprise a very tiny sampling of what’s out there, so I encourage you to Google for yourself, too.)

  • The University LowBrow Astronomers of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has a nice reprint of a 1998 article by Mark Deprest called Questions by Students and Teachers.
  • The folks at Cool Cosmos have the ever-popular Ask an Astronomer for Kids page, chock full of all kinds of great info.
  • NASA’s Starchild learning center online is a great source for questions and answers!
  • My friend Phil Plait (also known as The Bad Astronomer) has a great set of Youtube videos where he answers questions from kids. Check ’em out.
  • And then there’s Curious about Astronomy, the outreach effort from Cornell University.
  • Want to test your knowledge in astronomy (and other sciences)?  Check out the Explorit online science center.
  • Finally (for this round of links, anyway) there’s the Homework Help page at Amazing Space, the outreach effort at Space Telescope Science Institute.

Chances are I’ll be poking around some more as I prepare my talks for IYA, and who knows what other great sites I’ll run across as I do!