I sat enthralled for over an hour yesterday as C-SPAN replayed the delicate and time-consuming spacewalk by astronaut Steve Robinson of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Since the event was being broadcast on C-SPAN, there was no commercial interruption, and very little narration, just amazing pictures from underneath the belly of the shuttle in orbit. I was marginally interested as well to note that during the spacewalk, the first piece of debris – a “gap filler” for the thermal tiles – was removed as the shuttle and the space station orbited silently over Massachusetts.

The whole ordeal was incredibly fascinating, and it reminded me of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where Dave Bowman attempts the extravehicular maneuver to remove a malfunctioning AE-35 unit. For a little over four hours, it was high tension in space. Luckily, it looks like the crew won’t have to attempt another such repair during this mission.

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And don’t forget to practice your own spacewalking skills just in case you find yourself miles above earth in orbit and need to remove dangling thermal tile spacers.