"John Doe" wrote in message
...
Since NASA screwdrivers probably cost a million dollars each, wouldn't
there be a financial incentive to go and get that bag ? :-)

Since they probably don't, no.


Does NASA have any policies/procedures/training to retrieve lost objects
should there be a decision that the object is mission critical ?

For instance, would NASA ever authorise the astronaut to use SAFER to go
and get the object and bring it back ? (assuming the object is really
important) ?


No. Human lives are more important.


Or would they authorise the astronaut to use a long enough theter and
propel him/herself toward the objecrt and then use safer to adjust
trajectory to get to the object and then just pull hiM/her self back to
the station using the thether ?


I believe the answer is no. Tethers are backups, not primary means of
staying safe.


Or would the simplest solution be to use the station's engines to get
station near the object and use the new fancy canadian robot hands to
grab the object ?

(the RMS by themselves have no object grabbing capabilities, but the
Dexter robot does).

In this case, wouldn't the delta V given to the bag be rather small and
be quite cheap to give station similar delta V to close the gap with it ?

Too high risk. Far easier to just forget about it.




--
Greg Moore
Ask me about lily, an RPI based CMC.