The first ever space "walk" underneath the shuttle is
complete.
I put "walk" in quotes because what they actually did was attach the astronaut to the space station's robitic arm while those aboard the station maneuvered him into position.
This was an unscheduled walk to remove a couple bits of filler material from between some of the heat shield tiles that was dangling. In the past, NASA has observed increased temperatures of a couple hundred degrees on the shuttle during reentry, and when they inspected it afterwards found similar bits of hanging material. So since no one could rule out the possibility that these bits could cause overheating, especially since one of the bits was towards the front which ist he hottest part, they played it safe.
It was a delicate walk, they went super slow to be sure that the astronaut (Stephen Robinson) didn't bump the shuttle at all and risk damaging a tile. He left behind all the tools they'd normally carry on a space walk to reduce the risk. All he had with him was a makeshift hack saw in case the material didn't come out easily
NASA figured it might take up to a couple of hours to actually remove the material. As it turned out, it just slid right out, took him a few seconds. I got a chuckle because MSNBC.com has a big splash banner headline on their front page, "Mission Accomplished!" and then you watch the video and it's a guy pulling what looks like a piece of paper out of a crack. Oh those brave, brave astronauts. Of course, I'm fully impressed with the whole operation and know that a lot of real effort went into it. The whole walk actually took 6 hours. But it's still pretty funny to see "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" in front of a video of a guy grabbing a piece of paper.
