Space-age sticky tape
QUESTION Is gaffer tape carried aboard the International Space Station for any running repairs?
GAFFER tape, or duct tape, is called ‘grey tape’ on the International Space Station (ISS) manifest and has a long and distinguished history in the U.S space programme.
Nasa’s Skylab, the U.S.’s first space station, which orbited Earth from 1973 to 1979, had a gridded floor. A triangular cleat on the soles of the astronaut’s shoes locked into the triangular grid pattern of the floor to anchor him in position.
Unfortunately, the shoes didn’t always live up to the demands the astronauts placed on them, so they secured the cleat by wrapping grey tape around them.
The running repairs made to Apollo 17’s rover during the 1972 Moon landing used tape: following an accident, Commander Gene Cernan and lunar module pilot Harrison Schmitt secured the damaged rover’s rear bumper with tape.
A specialised polyimide electrical tape called Kapton tape is also used. On June 3, 1965, Edward H. White II stepped outside his craft during the Gemini-Titan 4 spaceflight and became the first American spacewalker. He secured his 25ft umbilical line and his 23ft tether by wrapping them in Kapton tape.
During a 2006 Nasa Space Shuttle mission to the ISS, the safety catches failed on Piers Sellers’s emergency jetpack. On board the ISS, his companions applied Kapton tape to keep the catches closed.
They choose Kapton instead of grey tape for its smoother surface, but later commented that the mechanically stronger grey tape would have been better as Sellers’s spacewalk buddy Michael Fossum often had to re-secure the tape. Most commonly, grey tape is used to hold things down in a zero gravity environment. In an interview with The Atlantic magazine, astronaut Sandra Magnus explained: ‘Think about how often you throw things in a trash can. How can you do that? Because gravity lets you. Without gravity, you have to figure out what to do. I put the trash on a piece of duct tape — but dealing with the trash takes for ever.’
Dr Ken Bristow, Glasgow. DESPITE the intense psychological testing astronauts undergo before being let on the ISS, living in confined quarters in space for up to six months can put a strain on mental well-being.
Following the case of German pilot Andreas Lubitz, who deliberately crashed a plane full of passengers into the Alps, Nasa revealed the procedure in place in case of mental breakdown.
Duct tape is used to bind the wrists and ankles. Next the person must be tied down with bungee cords to prevent them from lashing out. The crew is then authorised to administer tranquillisers if the patient is unwilling.
David Smith, Preston, Lancs.
QUESTION Who first claimed that ‘only the good die young’?
IN ECCLESIASTES (7:15-18), Solomon, King of Israel (ruled c. 970–931 BC) discusses why good people suffer and bad people prosper.
In 7:15 he writes: ‘I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness.’
Or as a more modern translation reads: ‘I have seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death of good young people and the long life of wicked people.’
There is also the ancient Greek sentiment ‘those whom the Gods love die young’. The origin, as told by the Greek historian Herodotus, concerns two especially favoured youths who, replacing two missing oxen, hitched themselves to a cart and carried their mother to a festival for the goddess Hera.
At the temple, the mother asked Hera to reward her sons with the greatest gift anyone might receive, whereupon her sons lay down to sleep and never awoke.
The more recent version can be traced back to William Wordsworth’s The Excursion and the lines: ‘ The good die first/And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust burn/Burn to the socket.’ Performers including Billy Joel (1977) and Iron Maiden (1988) have recorded songs with this title, too. Germaine Saunders, Fleetwood, Lancs.
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