Spacewalk Extended, But Tee Time Postponed

ANN REAL TIME NEWS: 0545 EDT -- Both crewmen aboard the International Space Station got to spend a bit more time outside the vehicle, continuing a spacewalk aimed at performing several maintenance procedures.

The six-hour EVA was marred only by the loss of a foot-restraint adaptor -- a 12-inch metal strap designed to hold a crewmember to the 50-foot Russian-made telescoping boom used during Friday's repairs.

We have a problem," station commander Pavel Vinogradov told the Russian flight control team.  "We have the foot restraint gone. It was in the closed position. We don't understand it. That's bad."

Regardless of the loss, Vinogradov and Expedition 13 engineer Jeffrey Williams continued their tasks, which included installing a new vent port for the ISS's malfunctioning oxygen generator, inspecting several antennae around the space station, and moving a cable thought to have been interfering with radio transmissions to and from the ISS.

As the clock ran out, there was a brief discussion between the spacewalkers and controllers about whether to drop the final task -- the replacement of a camera vital to the installation of future ISS components. In the end, however, the spacewalk was extended.

It was indeed a long EVA, but certainly not the longest. That record goes to another ISS crew, which, back in 2001, ventured outside the station for almost nine hours.

But even given the length of the event, there was no golfing. Commander Vinogradov was supposed to have pulled out a six-iron and hit a gold-plated golf ball from a specially-constructed tee-box during this spacewalk. It was part of a paid-for publicity stunt on behalf of a Canadian sporting goods company. But concerns about where the longest golf shot in history might actually land caused both Russian and American space officials to postpone the stunt while the considered the ramifications.

FMI: www.nasa.gov