D.carden Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 (edited) I'm sure most of you caught this on the news recently.........The astronaut with slippery paws.. Any NASA buff's out there got any idea what these tools/bag are made of...????? I say $ 50 at the local hardware store should cover it..!!! "The tool bag cost $100,000 and its loss meant astronauts had to share the remaining tool bag for subsequent spacewalks. The tool bag weighs about 30 pounds and is 20 inches wide, about a foot tall and a hand's-width deep, according to John Ray, STS-126 lead spacewalk officer for the flight. The bag contained two grease guns, a scraper tool, a large trash bag and a small debris bag". Edited November 26, 2008 by D.carden Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlamoShooter Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 The Morning "news show" that my wife watches aka Good Morning America . Said it was a $100,000 tool bag They made a joke about it -Not- coming out of the pay check of the NASA Astro girl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rvb Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 weight is a premium on any space launch... so you can bet they aren't steel tools. What's that material smith revos are made of? Scadmium or something like that? who knows. And they'd have to work well with those bulky suit gloves, so they are probably shaped special. Then the tollerances are probably pretty tight. Then there is ESD, can't go arcing when you make contact to the bolt your working on so there is probably special coating or material considerations.... All things considered, $100k don't sound that bad. -rvb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiG Lady Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Why in hell wasn't it lashed to the 'naut or the space rig??!! DUH!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 We used to work in a plant that had and explosive atmosphere, NO SPARKS were allowed. We were issued special wrenches and hammers. I believe they were made of a material caller Beryllium or something similar. As I remember back then a standard crescent wrench was maybe $5-7 one of these was over $100! and these were not for a Government project, that would have at least quadrupled the cost. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougCarden Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Dan, just think of it as non refundable bail for some of your boys, same thing.....LOL DougC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlamoShooter Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 I wonder ...How long will it be until the Tool bag is finally pulled back to earth?....Will they make it past reenter? What will happen to Bubba when they hit him on the head & Will it be a big media event? & Will the Young-Ones say I remember that the tool bag was lost back in 2008 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scirocco38s Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 We used to work in a plant that had and explosive atmosphere, NO SPARKS were allowed. We were issued special wrenches and hammers. I believe they were made of a material caller Beryllium or something similar. As I remember back then a standard crescent wrench was maybe $5-7 one of these was over $100! and these were not for a Government project, that would have at least quadrupled the cost.Jim You are correct. They still use them . They are made from copper and berylium alloy. They also use them in MRI facilities where working within the high magnetic field requires that there are no ferrous metals in the room as they become projectiles as they advance toward the bore of the magnet. Theos tools are also coated so that you dont touch the bare metal as Berylium is a known cancer causing metal. They are extremely expensive now, each wrench is in the 600-700 dollar range. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.carden Posted November 26, 2008 Author Share Posted November 26, 2008 Im getting my spotting scope out................. Lets see who can spot this thing...!!!!!!! "After sunset on Nov. 22, Edward Light, using 10 x 50 binoculars, spotted the bag in space while he scanned the sky from his backyard in Lakewood, N.J., Spaceweather.com reported. On the same night, Keven Fetter of Brockville, Ontario, video-recorded the bag as it passed by the star Eta Pisces in the constellation Pisces. The tool bag can be seen through binoculars, a few minutes ahead of the space station's orbit. The satellite tracker predicts that the bag will be visible through binoculars from Europe and western North America during a series of passes this week. By late next week, the tool bag should appear in the evening skies over most of North America. The tool bag is not the only piece of space trash from the station. Other junk includes an unmanned Russian cargo ship and a massive ammonia coolant tank the size of a refrigerator. The coolant tank was intentionally tossed from the space station in 2007, and it burned up in Earth's atmosphere earlier this month. The cargo ship undocked on Nov. 14, but will loiter in orbit for engineering tests before its planned disposal in Earth's atmosphere in early December." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buddy_fuentes Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 "All things considered, $100k don't sound that bad." RVB, I'm sure as heck not going to send you to buy tools for me! Buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flexmoney Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 No worries about sharing the remaining tool bag. I hear a Snap-On truck just pulled up with replacements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rvb Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 (edited) "All things considered, $100k don't sound that bad."RVB, I'm sure as heck not going to send you to buy tools for me! Buddy You mean I can't borrow your credit card?? Bummer! You've obviously not dealt w/ gov't contracts.... NASA specs a "tool." The spec has weight, strength, hardness, electrical, and dimensional requirements and tollerances, etc. The put out a RFP (request for proposal) so companies can say what they will build and what it will cost. The tools then get built once a contract is in place. But they aren't yet delivered... no the have to send samples to testing labs or have the test equipment themselves to test all the things in the spec. Then they have to document the living snot out of it. In the mean time there are design reviews with the contracting agency. Then if the tool requires calibration (electrical equipment or things like torque wrenches) those contracts have to be put in place. The $100k figure does not include the gov't employees' sallaries for spec'ing the tools, dealing with the contracts, etc. Add all that in you've probably trippled the listed "cost" of the tools. Putting a "toolbox" into space isn't the same as running to Sears on your lunchbreak. If it's 100 tools in that tool box and they are $1k a piece, it wouldn't suprise me a bit (especially after hearing the comments from some of the guys above who have experience w/ custom tools). -rvb edit: I forget the dollar figure, but it's thousands of $ per pound [!] to put something into space. Depending on how much weight the special tools save over a Craftsman equivalent, they may have paid for themselves. Edited November 26, 2008 by rvb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Norman Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 I still like the line from "Independence Day" when the President findas out that Roswell is real and Are 51 houses alien space craft. He asks where they got all the money to do the project and the General in charge re[plies: "You didn't think we really spent $600.00 on toilet seats did you sir?" Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimmyZip Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 I wonder ...How long will it be until the Tool bag is finally pulled back to earth?....Will they make it past reenter? What will happen to Bubba when they hit him on the head & Will it be a big media event? & Will the Young-Ones say I remember that the tool bag was lost back in 2008 I still like the line from "Independence Day" when the President findas out that Roswell is real and Are 51 houses alien space craft. He asks where they got all the money to do the project and the General in charge re[plies:"You didn't think we really spent $600.00 on toilet seats did you sir?" Jim As a relative of someone who did some covert type work in the past, the reply to a conversation like this was, "Hell, why do you think the CIA has so many accountants? To launder all that ops money!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catfish Posted November 26, 2008 Share Posted November 26, 2008 Maybe the astronaut in question (AIQ) had some diapers in her bag for those long cross country trips?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted Murphy Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 i seem to recall that the wrenches the astronauts use (particularly the ratcheting ones) had some kind of mechanism to counter some of the issues with weightlessness. A standard ratchet will find the user rotating instead of the nut or bolt. Something like that. Ted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Antichrome Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 99 cents worth of cord would've saved a $100K toolbag...whats the old saying? "A stitch in time..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Boudrie Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 Beryllium-copper pipe wrenches start at $147 for an 8" model (http://www.labsafety.com/search/non-sparking/29910/), and you can get some wrenches for as little as $45.80 (http://www.labsafety.com/search/non-sparking/20040/). Some are *way* more expensive. Some of the early para Ordnance wide body 1911's were made of a beryllium-copper alloy, however, I don't think these were ever released to the public. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 Yeah, they were, too, and at least one pistol smith I know didn't want to work on them back then because grinding on one produced really bad fumes, he said. Think about it as far as the tools go. These instruments have to go from 250 degrees in direct sunlight unfiltered from an atmosphere to -250 degrees on the nightside in a matter of minutes and then back again. You go from one to the other extreme every 45 minutes. Somehow I doubt you can buy anything to repeatedly tolerate extreme temperature shifts like that from off the shelf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wgnoyes Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 Maybe the astronaut in question (AIQ) had some- <snip> http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/stefanys.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChuckS Posted November 28, 2008 Share Posted November 28, 2008 Maybe the astronaut in question (AIQ) had some- <snip> http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/stefanys.html <Severe thread drift> Interesing story on the Sub salvage that she worked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAP_Pacocha_(SS-48) </Severe thread drift> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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