Astronomy

Astronauts tested out the new caulk gun this week right outside the International Space Station. The reported that they were testing it out to make sure that the repair tool will work on repairing any damaged shuttle heat shields. Both astronauts – Robert Behnken and Mike Foreman – tested the pink substance into the damaged shuttle tiles while on their 6 hour and 24 minute spacewalk to see how well it would do in space.

“It goes down really well,” Foreman said as he tamped down the thick goop with a sponge-like tool. “It really is like a loaf of bread with a lot of little bubbles in there.” NASA engineers developed the shuttle tile repair tool, known as the Tile Repair Ablator Dispenser (T-RAD), in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster to fix dings in the thousands of ceramic tiles that line an orbiter’s underbelly.

The shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, killing its seven-astronaut crew, due to a hole in the fragile carbon-composite heat shield panels along its left wing. NASA has developed a black heat-resistant putty for minor panel damage, with the caulk gun and goo, small patches and a gray primer wash reserved for dinged tiles.

“Having this in our bag of tricks is really going to be helpful,” Behnken said before today’s spacewalk. Thursday’s excursion began at 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT) and marked the fourth of five spacewalk planned for NASA’s STS-123 shuttle flight aboard Endeavour. The shuttle astronauts have delivered a new station crewmember, a Japanese module and a massive Canadian maintenance robot called Dextre to the ISS during their 16-day mission.