Musgrave's Spacewalk Scenerio

Andrey Serbinenko wrote in
:

I understand that using a device like a pair of sticky-pad gloves to
allow an EVA person to kind of crawl to any part of the vehicle is out
of the question, but I'm wondering why. Do adhesives work in space?

They work. It's important to keep context he for a hypothetical post-
return-to-flight repair EVA, some form of worksite stabilization is
required, and adhesive pads are one concept being considered. You don't
want adhesive gloves, though - there are some times you need the gloves
*not* to stick to something. But for a hypothetical STS-107 "what-if"
scenario, such materials were not available to the crew.

Or another though along same lines: obviously handrails cannot be
provided just anywhere they might need them, but perhaps a set of spot
electro-magnets can be planted just under the tile surface of the
orbiter that can be activated on demand and used with magnetic gloves
or a removable magnetic handrail.

Most of the areas where you'd need the electromagnets are not accessible
from the inside during flight, so you'd need to put them in place before
launch, and you'd need at *lot* of them. And they'd have to be very strong
electromagnets to work through the thickness of the tile. So the weight
penalty would be extremely high. Not a practical idea. You're better off
using a boom or truss to anchor the EVA crewmember to the RMS, and use
adhesive pads to control boom flex.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.