Astronauts ‘hammer’ home successful mission
The 346km-high action unfolded on the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 13.
Making their second spacewalk in three days, Rick Mastracchio and Clayton Anderson banged and pulled and shoved, with no success, on the stuck bolt. They undid the good bolts and jostled the 1,700-pound, refrigerator-size tank in case it was misaligned. Finally, the troublesome bolt slid into its slot.
“You got to be kidding me!” shouted Anderson.
“Did it go in?” astronaut Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger asked from inside.
“Yes, yes. You got to be kidding me,” Anderson replied. “It is in there.” Then he paused for effect. “Now what do we do?”
As he turned the bolt a dozen times, Anderson urged: “Come on, baby. Get on there. Yeah, get ‘er done.”
The astronauts inside kept urging the spacewalkers to take a break and rest their hands. But they insisted they weren’t too tired.
Nevertheless, Mission Control put off the fluid line hookups for the tank and a few other chores, saying they could be completed in the third and final spacewalk tomorrow.
Even with that, the spacewalk ran long at seven and a half hours. By then, the two had enough.
Shuttle Discovery’s commander, Alan Poindexter, urged his two crewmen to “take it slow and easy” as they headed back inside.
The slot for the fresh tank was emptied earlier in the spacewalk, when Mastracchio and Anderson popped out a spent ammonia tank that had been on the space station for eight years.
The ammonia is circulated through radiators to cool space station electronics.
Discovery will remain at the space station until Saturday.
Landing is scheduled for April 19.
Apollo 13’s three-man crew blasted off April 11, 1970. An oxygen tank ruptured two days later as the astronauts made their way to the moon.
The rescue became one of the most dramatic ever seen by the world and remains one of NASA’s shining moments.
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