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>> JOHN: Yep, when you’re
working in a vacuum and you’re

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inside a spacesuit with oxygen,
you know, you don’t wanna cut

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your glove because then the
oxygen will leak out and then

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you die, so that’s a bad day!
>> CHRISTY: It’s suboptimal.

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[LAUGHTER]

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[UPBEAT MUSIC]

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>> JOHN: Hi, I’m John Grunsfeld,
NASA astronaut.

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>> CHRISTY: Hi, I’m Christy
Hansen, NASA

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astronaut trainer for
spacewalking, and flight

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controller. >> ED: I’m Ed Rezac,
EVA engineer for the Hubble

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Space Telescope Project.
>> JOHN: Now EVA is an acronym

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that means extravehicular
activity, which is just a fancy

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way of saying “spacewalk,” and I
was lucky enough to do eight

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spacewalks on the Hubble Space
Telescope, working with Christy

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and Ed. The Hubble Space
Telescope was designed to be

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upgraded and fixed on orbit,
occasionally something would

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break that wasn’t anticipated,
and we had to come up with new

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ways of fixing it. And that was
the case on this last mission,

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the most ambitious of all the
Hubble missions, and some of the

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most difficult spacewalks ever
done. The Space Telescope

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Imaging Spectrograph failed, and
we had to figure out a way to

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fix it on orbit rather than
putting in a whole new

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scientific instrument, which is
what we usually did on Hubble.

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Unfortunately, the designers of
the Space Telescope Imaging

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Spectrograph never imagined that
we would have to open it up in

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space, and it had hundreds of
tiny little screws that we had

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to remove to access a circuit
board to replace it to bring the

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tele- the instrument back to
life. So these are some of the

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tools that we came up with to be
able to do that. >> ED: We tried

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to make the tools as astronaut
friendly as possible, and one

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way we had to do that, or that
we chose to do that, was using

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colors to color code the
different size fasteners and the

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fastener bits so the astronauts
could easily grab what they need

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and proceed with the task.
>> CHRISTY: How do we pick up an

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interface and not lose something
in orbit? Bit caddy! Which one

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do you want John? >> JOHN: I’ll
take a red bit! [TOOL CLANKS]

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>> ED: John’s going for the red
bit. The STIS had several

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different fastener types that
had to be removed which required

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different bits. And the fastener
capture plate which held all the

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fasteners and kept them from
drifting into the optics core of

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the telescope was also color
coded. So John could match the

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bit up with the color code on
the plate itself. >> JOHN: So we

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installed this fastener capture
plate on the front of the STIS:

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Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph Instrument, and the

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reason why we had to use the
fastener capture plate is, as Ed

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said, if I were to remove a
screw and let go of it and it

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floated away it could damage the
telescope. So all of the screws

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were behind this plate.
>> CHRISTY: And you had 111

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chances to lose screws. >> JOHN:
And you would insert the bit

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through a tiny little hole on
the fastener capture plate,

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engage the head
of the screw,

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[TOOL WHIRRS] undo
it, and then when you take the

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bit out the screw would float
around inside of this little

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cavity, and the screw was big
enough that it wouldn’t fit

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through the hole. And then
repeat 111 times.

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>> CHRISTY: And how do we track
all that John? >> JOHN: Well,

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like any good spacewalk we had a
set of procedures that you

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helped write. >> CHRISTY:
Exactly, so we had a whole

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ground team associated with
developing the procedures,

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capturing all the requirements,
and flying an EVA

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spacewalking checklist on orbit.

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So when John and Mike Massimino,
who actually performed this task

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on spacewalk number four,
removed each one, we had a

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requirement that he actually
read to the ground, “okay I’m

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releasing screw number one,” and
we would all be on the ground,

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“check, screw number one,” “now
screw number two,” 111 times to

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make sure that everything was
fully released, so that when he

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went to remove the interface
nothing was stuck, it wasn’t

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stuck on the telescope. >> JOHN:
Really amazing, all the

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complexity to do something as
simple as removing hundreds of

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tiny screws so that we can get
access to the circuit board and

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use another tool to pull it out,
put a new one in, put a new

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cover on with no screws that
locked on, >> ED: Right.

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>> JOHN: and bring that
instrument back to life so that

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it could continue looking at
black holes and the distant

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universe, really pretty
amazing, all worked

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out great.
>> CHRISTY: In addition

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to what John said, the
astronauts had to be trained on

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“stay away from this,” “don’t
touch that,” they’re taking

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something off and handing it off
to another astronaut, they have

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to make sure that they don’t cut
gloves in the process of doing

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those transfers. So all that is
designed, and trained, into

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their repeated training tasks so
they have this muscle memory to

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be careful every single time.
>> JOHN: Yep, when you’re

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working in a vacuum
and you're inside a

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spacesuit with
oxygen, you know,

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you don’t wanna cut your glove
because then the oxygen will

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leak out and then you die, so
that’s a bad day!

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>> CHRISTY: It’s suboptimal.
[LAUGHTER] >> JOHN: Thanks for

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joining us on Hubble Tool Time!
>> CHRISTY: Thank you!

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>> ED: See ya!

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[UPBEAT MUSIC]

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[SILENCE]

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>>CHRISTY: I like
all the pretty colors.

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[UPBEAT MUSIC]

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>>JOHN:
That’s pretty stable.

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>>MIKE: That’s not bad at all.
>>JOHN: Kind of boring.