Two astronauts on the shuttle Atlantis started a 6 and a half hour walk today outside of the ISS (International Space Station). Garreit Reisman and Stephen Bowen's mission is to install a dish antenna and a storage platform for Dextre, a Canadian robot. These two specialists also have two spacewalks scheduled for Wednesday and Friday. The camera inspection of Atlantis was limited due to a pinched cable which NASA says will be easy to free. Tomorrow the astronauts will attach a Russian compartment to the ISS. The ISS currently orbits 352 kilometers above the Earth's crust and is where the 6 member crew of the Atlantis will be for the next week. They need to do some experiments such as Hypersole which will tell Canadian researchers how sensitive the astronaut's skin is to the sole of the boots. This could help fix balance problems. Atlantis has served in 31 missions already and this one is its last so NASA has given it spare parts to deliver to the ISS.
My first thoughts to reading this article were about how this is affecting the environment, in other words the tons of carbon dioxide and rocket fuel being burned during take-off, the millions of space junk already floating around the Earth's atmosphere ready to fall in, etc... Satellites have fallen back to Earth in the past because they malfunction and not used anymore. Destability is very common and usually it takes the launch of another satellite close to an already broken one for it to drop to Earth spilling tons of chemicals and other metals such as lead which may harm the evironment in a significant way. But then again, space research does prove to be important in some ways as we are polluting this world and some scientists are giving ideas about moving to another planet. In this case it is helpful to know about how humans can accommodate to outer space. In that regard, I feel experiments like Hypersole which astronauts are carrying out from Atlantis, will help.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/05/17/shuttle-walk.html
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