Female astronaut loses her bag in space

Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper was carrying out an unprecedented attempt to clean up a gummed-up joint on the International Space Station's solar panel on Tuesday when the grease gun inside her tool bag exploded, getting nasty grey goo all over her camera and her gloves.

As she cleaned herself up (after all you have to have standards, even in outer space), the back-pack sized bag slipped out of her grip and she was forced to watch helplessly as all her tools floated off into space.

"Oh, great," she mumbled as the reality of the situation hit home. Woman. Bag. Space. Probably not a good combination. And, just to pile on the embarassment, it was one of the largest items ever to be lost by a space walker.



Luckily, however, there was a handy bloke around to save the day. Stephen Bowen, carrying out the space walk with Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper had his own tool bag with another grease gun, putty knife and oven-like terry cloth mitts.

He managed to keep a tight grip on his bag, so the space walk continued as planned, with the astronauts sharing Mr Bowen's tools, and they finished their job in seven hours.

"Despite my little hiccup, or major hiccup, I think we did a good job out there," Ms Stefanyshyn-Piper said after returning to the space station. Flight controllers were, however, assessing the impact the lost bag would have on the next three planned space walks.

Full story here, with video.