Cape Canaveral: A pair of spacewalking astronauts, one of them a surgeon, hustled
through antenna and cable work outside the International Space Station and even managed to do an extra chore.
Atlantis crewmen Michael Foreman and Dr. Robert Satcher Jr had a spare antenna installed in just two hours after venturing out on the first spacewalk of their mission.
They also hooked up cables and a handrail, and greased some mechanisms, zooming two hours ahead at one point.
"You guys are rocking the house," astronaut Randolph Bresnik called from inside the linked shuttle-station complex.
As Satcher -- the first orthopedic surgeon in space -- lubricated snares for a robot arm, Bresnik observed "it is a thing of beauty to see the good doctor at work."
"We have photographic evidence of the highest recorded orthopedic surgery _ ever," Bresnik said.
Foreman, meanwhile, had his hands full of wire ties needed to secure a slew of cables and other gear. He joked before the mission that he was known as the wire-tie king, and
that he was going after the 100 mark. His crewmates inflated it just a bit.
"Welcome to the thousand wire-tie club, Mike," Bresnik said.
Foreman, a veteran spacewalker, couldn't resist some humour of his own while floating 355 kilometres above the planet.
"Hard to believe, Bobby, I think your feet look bigger from space," Foreman teased.
Bureau Report
First Published: Friday, November 20, 2009, 08:53