If you see a putty knife…

Correspondent John Berman blogs from the Johnson Space Center: If you see a putty knife moving at 17 thousand miles an hour, call NASA. Astronauts Piers Sellers and Mike Fossum were in the middle of a spacewalk, when they noticed that one of their tools, a putty-knife or spatula, had disappeared. It seems it floated out of Discovery’s cargo bay, and out into orbit. "No sign of the spatula; I think it’s gone, gone, gone," Sellers said. NASA says it’s happened before and bigger items have been lost with no ill effects. For instance, there was the time they lost that Ford Pinto. No word if the orbital spatula will be visible to the naked-eye in the northern hemisphere any time soon. (At left, not the actual putty knife.) Meanwhile, there is a bigger problem in Planet Houston. My computer died, dead. It won’t boot up at all anymore. There is just the tiniest bit of irony that my computer died here at the Johnson Space Center. After all, NASA put a guy on the moon with about as much computing power as is in a digital wrist-watch. But my modern laptop, issued by the ABC Television Network, (a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company) won’t turn on. I blame society. I am asking NASA to launch it into orbit… Maybe it can meet up with a friendly spatula. (At right, not the actual laptop.) It is a sad ending to my relationship with this machine. We have been through a lot together. There was the time it didn’t work in Iraq, and then there was the time it didn’t work in Indonesia. There was once when it wouldn’t let me sign-in at all. Ah, sweet memories. But back to space, which is why am here in Houston (well that and all the fast-food opportunities which included Sonic, Whataburger, Taco Bell, and IHOP, in one 24 hour period.) The Shuttle has been given the all-clear to land next week, which is really good news for NASA. They will be able to restart construction on the International Space Station (or the “orbital erector-set,” as I like to call it), and maybe put a new battery in the Hubble Space Telescope. This past weekend I was able to ask a question to the Shuttle commander, which was pretty cool. I can interview a guy in space, but I can’t turn on my computer. Finally, since Planet Houston is the official home district of General Zod, I thought it would appropriate to include a link to this website.