Photo: With his back to the video camera, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide works on equipment during a spacewalk at the International Space Station on Wednesday. SOURCE NASA TV.

See. Mom was right, “Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush.” . . . EDITOR

from MSNBC

Posted 9/5/2012

Spacewalkers use improvised tools to free up stuck bolt, install power box

By Denise Chow

Two spacewalking astronauts successfully replaced a vital power unit on the International Space Station on Wednesday, defeating a stubborn bolt that originally delayed the fix with the help of some improvised tools made of spare parts and a toothbrush.

NASA astronaut Sunita Williams and Japanese spaceflier Akihiko Hoshide performed the spacewalk repair. The fix-it job in space was actually an extra spacewalk tacked onto their mission after the stuck space station bolt prevented the astronauts from properly installing the power unit — called a main bus switching unit, or MBSU — on the outpost’s backbone-like truss on Aug. 30. . . . Read Complete Report