Don’t Drop your Tools in Space

Seriously though, look up the price of those keysight tools. Well worth signing up to win one. www.keysight.com/us/en/events/keysight-world/live-…

Debris Shield: I've become the very thing I swore to destroy

It's the extreme version of holding the light for your Dad.

I'm quite proud to say that I've never dropped or lost any tools in low-Earth Orbit.

There's a real story of an Air Force guy in the USA working on a fully fueled cold war era nuclear missile silo. He dropped some heavy tool/part down the shaft. It wound up puncturing the liquid fuel tank of the missile, flooding the facility. Everyone evac'd, two guys were sent in to check it out, on the way out something somewhere sparked the fumes inside. Blew the whole silo. Warhead was thankfully designed to not go off without X trigger, so "only" a massive fuel explosion.

If I ever drop a tool while working, I can always remind myself that astronauts have it way worse.

"Uhh, Mission Control, I lost the space station. Moving away at about half a meter per second." "Copy tha- You lost what?" "Yeah..."

As someone who hates wearing gloves and mitts (and who takes them off to do fine-motor tasks in the winter, even around -40), I can completely sympathize with how difficult holding on to something would be in space. Full respect to astronauts in their work.

Never send Sandra Bullock to space

That debris shield lol "you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain"

the story of the astronaut being swamped by spatula's when he returned to earth is awesome. I hope someone left a note "you dropped this".

As a commercial diver, I know exactly what they are struggling with. I'm working in Sweden where water temperatures force me to wear thick mittens and a 3 mm rubber glove on top of that. Dropped things ither sinks to the bottom or floates to the surface. But we don't have the micro gravity making heavy parts light in the water. Unless you adjust their buoyancy which is not always possible. This is the closest I will ever get going to space 😅

Realistically a dropped object poses little threat to the craft it was dropped from as the relative velocity would be small, however for other space craft it can pose a threat due to much higher relative velocities. Scott Manley did a video explaining this quite well some time ago using KSP to show the example

I remember the experimental self propelling robots tested inside the ISS. I wonder if it's good enough to act as retrievers in case of things like this

Everyday at work I have to worry about not dropping things. I've had a few drops. But overall a solid track record. (I'm a Labor Nurse btw.)

Used to climb towers. The last thing you want to do from the top of a 500’ tower is drop a tool or materials. It’s hard if not impossible to get back and could also kill someone.

Great video. Wow those space walks induce so much guttural fear in me, like floating away in Outer Wilds. And the clips of the ISS made me awe that something like that exists, and the collaboration it requires

I saw the movie Gravity, so my perception of something just floating away in space scares me more than the depths of the ocean. Because in the ocean, there's still things and creatures to either keep you occupied or end you. But in space, literally nothing. Monumentously terrifying.

For US astronauts, it started on June 3, 1965 when Ed White's spare space suit glove drifted up and out of the open Gemini 4 hatch during the very first American EVA.

This is a real concern for workers at height (ironic that space workers are the highest lol) There's a sweat inducing fear of dropping your tool. Usually I put ribbons or strings to handhelds on my wrists. But a bigger object is especially dangerous because it could come slamming down on someone unexpectedly. Definitely injuring them or killing. I remember one day I was epoxying an incomplete stair well in a large building one day and the rollers grip imprinted itself into my hand I was holding it so tight.