Another landmark engineering triumph for the manned space effort as a new hydraulic device was installed at the International Space Station.
To the great relief of the international crew, space station flight engineer Oleg Kononenko ended a tense situation at the orbital facility, installing new Russian equipment — exactly like the part that failed! — recently delivered by the USA’s elderly Discovery Space Shuttle.
This is the Zvezda module (space toilet), not the shuttle Discovery. Photo: NASA
Think of the scientific knowledge gained through this experiment. Who knows, it might result in exciting changes to the next generation of mobile phones.
Another giant, um, step for mankind. Womankind is spending a lot of time in the Zvezda module, and crew members are knocking on the hatch and shouting, but what is petty human drama compared to the mysterious vastness of Outer Space? It came out all right in the end All’s well that ends well.
After astronauts were relaxed enough to spacewalk at a normal pace, they deployed the huge rice-paper screens of the new Japanese research module, named Kibo (hope).
Top image by Mike Licht. Flush Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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