For YEARS I have been saying that I am a superb mechanic/repair guy. When I take something apart I put it back together soooooo efficiently that I end up not using all the assorted screws, nuts, bolts and fasteners that it originally came with.
This is not a deficiency. Nay, the object I have just lovingly put back together is in BETTER condition than when I first took it apart. I put it back together more efficiently thatn the original designers. I have IMPROVED the product.
Well, apparently this is the philosophy of NASA as well.
Astronauts lose another bolt to space [msnbc.com]
To quote from the article…
“Astronauts working to bring to life a new 17 1/2-ton addition to the international space station lost another bolt to the void during a spacewalk early Wednesday.”
“There was no indication that the latest missing bolt went into the rotary joint or any other space station mechanisms, and the assumption is it floated away, NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma said. He said that the astronauts simply used three bolts for the task instead of four, and that there shouldn’t be a problem with that.”
Hahahahaha. See. They put it together better than the original designers. They used only 75% of the materials to do the same job! Give that man a raise, he’s trying to save the taxpayer’s money. That one bolt probably cost about $37,872. Now it will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, thereby contributing to Global Warming, forcing us to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, which will lead to the ice caps melting which will of course, as any fool can see, mean lower taxes for everybody.
But here’s the real kicker…
Space debris can be dangerous if it punctures space station walls or spacesuits and can jam crucial mechanisms. However, spacewalkers have a long history of losing things in space. In July, Discovery spacewalkers lost a 14-inch spatula that floated away.
A SPATULA? WTF?
Were they cooking? Maybe they lit up the engines for a quick second to broil some ribeye steaks. Or had an electric griddle or George Foreman grille on the wing making pancakes. Kinda romantic under the stars and everything, maybe they got carried away heavy-petting with all those space-suits in the way.
But seriously. A spatula? wtf….