Astronauts lose spider in space station
First it was a tool bag, now NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station have misplaced an orb-weaver spider.
Last Updated: 5:19AM GMT 20 Nov 2008
The bug was taken into space aboard the shuttle Endeavor last week, but was reported missing after crew found its tank empty.
But Nasa managers have insisted that the orb-weaver was not exactly lost, just temporarily misplaced..
“We don’t believe that it’s escaped the overall payload enclosure,” Kirk Shireman, Nasa’s deputy space station programme manager told the Times.
“I’m sure we’ll find him spinning a web sometime here in the next few days."
The spider was one of two orb-weavers taken into space for a three-month research mission.
It was hoped the missing spider might have sought refuge in its neighbour's tank, but the remaining spider has spun a web so thick, to cope with the zero-gravity conditions, that is is impossible to check.
The runaway spider, which was meant to be the back-up should the chief spider be incapacitated for any reason, was reported AWOL after Endeavour’s crew opened a cargo container of equipment including a new kitchen and toilet, additional living quarters for the station’s staff and a $250 million machine that will allow future crews to recycle their urine for drinking water.
