Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Space nappies

We visited the Science Museum this weekend, basically because it's there. Stayed mostly down in the new (to us, anyway) Space Flight stuff, which is seriously cool, and answered some, though by no means all, questions I have had for a long time.

Peeing was, of course easily managed. The 'product' was summarily jettisoned. The 'hard stuff' involved a little more thought. It required a loo with a metal bar for swinging across your thighs, or falling foul of Newton's Third Law (For every action, there is an equal and opposite . . . you get the picture.) The results were bagged and taken back to earth for analysis.

And for EVA, there were nappies. I kid you not, Astronaut Nappies. They looked vaguely re-usable, but my guess was that they needed to be substantial enough to be wrapped securely in the event that they had *ahem* been pressed into service.

What the guys in the Apollo 10 module, practically immobile for ten days, did, I never discovered. Pretty cool to see the module, though.

In other news, SO and I watched Trading Places yesterday. (I could put in a link, but honestly, who the hell doesn't know about Trading Places?) and discovered something SO and I have in common - a Thing for Lady Haden-Guest. Every time she appeared on screen identical and barely supressed moans escaped our numb lips.

Yowza.

UPDATE: Hi Dave. Also, thanks to Karen in the comments, I missed a fabulous trick by not saying that it was Newton's Third Law of MOTION. Ha ha ha ha ha!

8 comments:

Dave said...

Sorry, what is Trading Places? I have no idea.

Anonymous said...

was the science museum heaving? last time we went there at half term, we ended up feeling to the v'n'a, which was almost empty!
y'know, i think i might like one of those adult nappies. think of the time it would save. plus trampolining would no longer be taboo (not that it's something i yearn for on a regular basis but ...).
how lovely that you and so share an object of desire!

Valerie said...

Personally, I love Jamie Lee. My post-high-school crowd watched Trading Places several times, and our group admiration had more than a little to do with this (though I'll admit to finding the movie funny as well).

Thanks for posting the info that, I think, many of us have wondered as well about astronauts. It's interesting that this is everyone's suppressed question.

FirstNations said...

oh dang. Jaime Lee...18...the pretty young hitchhiker in John Carpenter's
The Fog'...the babysitter in all the slasher flicks...on a desk, in a zoo, wearing John Cleese like a duvet...

yeah, i get it!

I, Like The View said...

she's always had the affect on me, but I think I've really only seen her in A Fish Called Wanda

Breezy said...

They should use that example to teach physics lot more memorable than the crap:) they taught us about at school

Mangonel said...

Hey RG, I love the V&A. Have you seen the Ardabil Carpet in the East Wing? It's unbelievable. SO and I also have a bit of a thing for The Mummy. The guy playing him (Arnold Vosloo) is a bit odd, but in these movies? Wow.

Valerie, I think the movie is hilarious. I love Denholm Eliot in it. He and Eddie Murphy are the reasons I watch that particular flick again.

FN - stop it now. She's mine. MINE, I tell you.

I,LTV, another lovely movie. And with the lovely Kevin Kline in it, too.

Hey Karen, I'm so cross with myself for missing the opportunity for a fabulous pun myself - I should have said that it's Newton's Third Law of MOTION!!!

Anonymous said...

yes, yes and YES. it really is awesome. we sat for ages gazing at it and as soon as the light came on werished round like loonies pointing details out to each other. very un-v'n'a