Their kingdom for an easy out

woodlandfarms · May 17, 2009

I know this is a bit off topic but I now feel much better about stripping bolts. I have been watching the NASA boys and girls working on the Hubble and today, the last hex head screw to open the door (the very last one) stripped out.

And, they have no easy outs. No left hand drills.

Also, the guy doing this makes me feel much better about my skill sets. He is prone to forcing things, then figuring out what is binding...

Cool stuff. Wish I had their torque wrench...

woodlandfarms · May 17, 2009

And now the impact wrench doesn't work. (mini power tool) Wow

DieselPower · May 17, 2009

Don't forget that they are doing it in no gravity and about the most hostile environment imaginable. When we strip one out we are not wearing a confined, cumbersome space suit, have gravity and oh yea, a NAPA down the street.

JoelD · May 17, 2009

Interesting point, a place where there is little to no room for error and no easy outs, would expect that to be one of the fail safe pieces of equipment.

marimus · May 17, 2009

JoelD said:
Interesting point, a place where there is little to no room for error and no easy outs, would expect that to be one of the fail safe pieces of equipment.

Yeah I agree, for a bunch of smarties, they ain't so practical are they?

MossRoad · May 17, 2009

We were watching it later this afternoon when they were closing up the doors. Pretty cool. My daughter runs in the kitchen and yells DAD! the guy just let go of a tool and it floated away!!! Then she laughed and said, good thing it has a string on it.

woodlandfarms · May 18, 2009

In October one of the astronauts dropped a large tool bag from the space station. It now has its own website tracking it....

ISS DEB (TOOL BAG) Satellite details 1998-067BL NORAD 33442