@tehdahl: No need to give up your dreams. The chances of dying in a fiery explosion during a space flight remains significantly higher than the chances your junk will float away during a space walk.

frigg

You know she didn't say "Oh, great". NASA just cleaned that up. She probably said something like "Oh for f**ks sake, worthless Chinese piece of horse sh**.

Oh yeah, and in addition, it wasn't a man who made this mistake.

/Ducks in cover

shenanigans

I got a simple cost effective solution for them: tether the tools bag with a cord to their suits before they go out for their spacewalk. Why the astronauts still have to manually hold their bags while they already have enough to worry about is completely beyond me.

Well, at least it was tools that floated away rather than her.

rer89

Pluto's been getting into a lot of trouble lately. Disney had to have him committed, because he was fucking Goofy.

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

I think the caption is about Pluto.

thegadgeteer

@phryed: Pluto, in the guise of a toothy little sperm, has apparently vandalized a photo of an astronaut.

frigg

@phryed: You might want to touch up on your astronomy planetary classification systems. Also, have you not been on the interwebs since 2006?

Hope the grease didn't get on the solar panels she was trying to clean...

jawzzy

I don't know if it's indicative of my middle school mental state, but when I read "tools", my brain immediately jumped to "balls".

I was immediately thrown into chaos, and had thoughts of relinquishing my desire to be an astronaut.

EVER.

tehdahl

Well at least she didn't float away...

ab3

@phryed: Pluto.

brainswarm

@phryed: Pluto stole her tools?

Dreadfish

i don't get the caption.

phryed

oh man...by the title I thought it meant that because the astronaut lost their tools, they just basically floated away until they ran out of oxygen

way to get my hopes up gizmodo!

laxman15

@rer89: They do have tethers... can't wait to hear what happened in more detail. I'm guessing she forgot to tether it? Though even individual tools are tethered ore often than not.

drfaustus71

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper?

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper???

That name alone can cause a rip in the fabric of space-time.

scarbrtj

The new analogy for something that's hard to find: "Man, it's like trying to find a tool-set in space after getting squirted in the face with grease when your repairing ISS solar panels on a NASA mission and then saying 'that's great' and then being forced to share a tool-set with a fellow astronaut."

This will be replacing, of course: "Man, it's like finding a Nintendo Wii during Christmas time."

D.E.P.C.

Crikey, Some Guy in Australia is gonna have some cool 5 million dollar pliers to use around the house.

Matt2K

@frigg: Technically it's frozen sperm, which is useless when you're trying to make planetary babies: moons. And this is why Pluto is not considered a planet.

Astro-sex ed should be a class.

D.E.P.C.

@phryed: I know Pluto had been declassified. i still think its a silly stretch and has absolutely nothing to do with the story, hence the confusion.

phryed

@shenanigans: HAHAHAHAHAHA funniest thing i have read all day! props to you my friend!

manunited518

@drjayphd: Ha! Had to be the last post. I had to make sure no one has mentioned it yet.

ripfire

HAHA now whenever I think I have had a "bad" day at work I can just think of this and have a good laugh.

Yetibelle

@scarbrtj: If you say it 3 times backwards you can summon Cthulhu.

jackfrost132

@drfaustus71:

Two words: Magnetic Toolbelt

thebear91

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper's grease gun exploded all over her helmet camera and gloves, and while wiping off the mess, she shifted her attention off the tool bag.

"Grease gun", huh? That's what the kids are calling it these days?

drjayphd

@aerospaceman:
wow I am a prophet:
"Atlantis astronaut collapses at ceremony"

aerospaceman

with a name like Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, we can safely assume she has bigger problems than a bag of tools moving at 17,500mph....

aerospaceman

If I was in space and something I was holding in my hand EXPLODED, I don't think my first instinct would be to make sure the tools were secure.. It would probably be frantically checking to make sure a) I hadn't lost any limbs and b) I didn't have any holes in my suit..

Yeraze

Well... at least it was HER grease gun that exploded and not HIS....

ISS: Bowen do you copy? Come in Bowen... beep

Bowen: YES, YES, YEEEESSSSSS..... beep.

Piper: Why is your helmet all foggy?... beep.

aec007

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper
seriously?
How many first names could a person have?
heide-1
marie-2
stef-3
stefan-4
piper-5

drewdoog

@rer89: They're usually supposed to be tethered as drfaustus71 says. I would give the her and the story the benefit of the doubt before drawing any conclusions, we need more details, especially if a tool explodes in your hands... I'm just surprised there haven't been any jokes about women handling tools yet. [NOTE: I'm not making a joke, just commenting that there are no jokes.] Looks like we are all finally accepting chicks in the workplace!

ugar

@laxman15: You were hoping for an astronaut to die?!?

ugar

"... (her) grease gun exploded all over her helmet camera and gloves, and while wiping off the mess, she shifted her attention off the tool bag. She lost her grip and it floated away. "Oh, great," she was reported to mumble."

Are you sure her name isn't Lucille Esmeralda McGillicuddy Ricardo?

DoctorEcks

This is why we cant have nice things.

musicmonkey34

@ugar: She'd be an astronot after that. /rimshot

grawss

@phryed: Radiation from Pluto caused the grease gun to explode. She let go of her tools which gave Pluto the opportunity to snag them using it's own gravity.

Or... it has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

bucho54

@Matt2K: If he's able to dig them out of the crater that used to be his garage...

Toshie

@Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler: I thought that was Minnie? *drumroll*

Secret Agent Cow3.14

Greased up NASA astronaut girl gets screwed in space, missing her personal 'tools' already.
I understood that title easily enough.

kyot

@ugar: I'm honestly much more suprised no-one has commented on the "grease gun exploding all over her face" part, I guess its to obvious.

TheLostVikings

@grawss: I wish I could stab you in the eye over the internet.

Chroma

WHAT DID YOU WITH THE MONEY? WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE MONEY? WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THE MONEY THEY GAVE YOU TO GO TO ASTRONAUT SCHOOL?

FaithBabbas

With a name like Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, she's got to be good!

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

@Secret Agent Cow3.14: Minnie? Ha Ha!

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

@drewdoog: You forgot Stefany, sort of like Stephanie.... mmmmm.... thinking about a girl from my high school years now. Time to go.

LoganSix

Id really like to see her flight suite with the cool little badge on the front with her name...it prob wraps under her arm pit.

QAdam

Oh, great! She's an MIT grad (my alma mater). This is her second space flight. Her first flight also involved space walks and ISS maintenance. She's not the first astronaut to lose things in space, so I'm going to give her a pass on this one. I think we need a blame-cycle on why the grease gun exploded.

Barcard

Even in outer space women are losing their purses.

chefgon

Tether to stop all this, 10 dollars
Tools, roughly 100 dollars
Getting those into space, astronomical (heh) amount
Losing the tools only to have them gain speed and either take out a satellite, a returning space ship, or go into re-entry and cause massive amounts of damage who knows where, priceless

nametilf

@Secret Agent Cow3.14: A joke followed by a drum roll, huh?

hymntook

so does the gun get the last laugh cause it exploded all over her face... er helmet...?

chaz9205

i think he meant rim shot? @hymntook:

chaz9205

I really don't see anything terribly strange about this. I was changing an oil filter once and my hands were a little too greasy and I ended up sending all kinds of stuff (wrenches, socket parts, the new filter) squirting out of my hands like watermelon seeds between the fingers. Fortunately, they all skittered across the garage floor and came to rest so that I could pick them up. Honestly, I found the whole experience rather funny and it was an object lesson on keeping rags handy and tools wiped clean ... a lesson I learned and practice to this day. I can't imagine how awkward and unsettling it would be to have the same greasy-hands problem while in orbit. I'm sure the offending grease gun is due for a serious re-design.

ninjagin

BUTTERFINGERS!!!

AXSLV2

@Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler: Minnehaha? What was Hiawatha doing?

blore40

Astronaut to pilot: "Swing 'er around. I lost my hat...um tools."

It's a sad commentary that when I read "Astronaut loses tools" that I thought, 'it had to be a woman'. Shame, shame, shame on me. :( Forgive me.

yougottabekidding

@blore40: Minnihaha, of course.

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

@yougottabekidding: Men rarely lose a tool.

Comrade GadgetPlay, Fellow Traveler

You just know those tools are going to turn up on,like, PlutoCraigsList or something.

FiveLiters

@DoctorEcks: or Jenna Jameson?

FiveLiters

@TheLostVikings: But only after she "let go of the tool and wiped up the mess".

There,better? :0)

FiveLiters

@chaz9205: I actually did, but someone up in the other comments already used it.

Secret Agent Cow3.14