May 22nd, 2009
More Stunning Images From the Hubble Servicing Mission
Written by Nancy Atkinson
Filed under: Hubble, Space Flight, Space Shuttle
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May 22nd, 2009 at 11:52 am
Thanks! I needed that~ HO!
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 am
Do astronautrices deliberately puff up their hair for photoöps like this or does it just happen?
Will the thingummabob that broke last Autumn be dissected when it gets back home so we can see why it went bzzzt?
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
From what I've seen in the videos of the mission, Megan McArthur was wearing a baseball cap at least some of the time when she wasn't on camera, and removed it when being filmed for interviews and stuff.
She must have something in her hair (probably gel) to keep it swept backwards out of her face because even though it billowed out during when she took off her cap, it never drifted in front of her face.
So, to answer your question — no, they don't deliberately puff up their hair for photo-ops — it happens that way as an natural effect of weightlessness, but in Megan's case, she was definitely doing something to control her hair form being too unruly — probably with some sort of hair product, as I mentioned.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Everything they took out of Hubble is being brought back to Earth, so yes, they will be able to examine the instruments to see what went wrong.
Indeed, this is probably a very important activity since it could provide them with very useful information about equipment failures in space that they can apply in designing future instrumentation to be even more reliable that it is today.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Astronomers will be interested in examining WFPC 2 to see if (and how) the filters in the camera have altered their throughput and if any wavelength shift or passband width change has occurred. Also, close inspection of the CCDs will help with photometric calibration and dark noise characteristics. Measurement of these parameters will be crucial in properly calibrating data collected by the different filter-chip combinations in the images obtained with the WFPC 2 camera.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Thank you from Hungary!
May 26th, 2009 at 10:44 am
A bit late, but …
I just realised that I essentially commented on looks of the astronautrix and nothing else.
Sorry – She (like the rest of the crew) has done an awesome job beyond the capabilities of most everyone. I have nothing but respect for her.
It just happened that she's the one with the long hair in this image, and I recall seeing in floating like this in other group shots, while it seemed pretty calm when she was working.
So I just wondered whether it's tradition to splash out like that for photoops? (It's not something we can do down here after all.)