• AllyPally

    I love the copyright statement.

    • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

      Ha!

      The Queen owns it, marvelous.

  • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

    The thing that held my gaze the longest was the way his watch moved on his arm. Weirdly fascinating.

    • relawson

      Me too!!!

      As for the method of clipping nails in space, I was thinking they were going to do it with a hand and clippers inside of a big clear plastic bag. 

      • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

        I was kind of disappointed to see him just pull out some nail clippers to be honest. I thought we’d be in for some kind of laser madness.

        • relawson

          Yeah, or something like this http://www.alltvstuff.com/dog_nail_trimmer.html

    • http://vincenzoravina.tumblr.com/ Vincenzo Ravina

      Hadfield also posted a thirty second video of just his watch moving around, so I think he’s equally fascinated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwOIggnU878

      He says, “video of bizarre motion of my wristwatch, one of the first things that struck me when I got to orbit. Like it was alive on my wrist.”

      • http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

        Ha! It’s nice to see it’s not just me.

        • http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty

          If that is a mechanical watch (ie wound by the movement of the arm) would that be affected by zero gravity? Would it still wind? Probably, I guess.

      • Antinous / Moderator

        Why would someone use fuel to blast a big, honking watch into space? To a station that almost certainly has hundreds of time devices? He could have taken chocolate instead.

        • bkad

          Sometimes I feel like I’m one of the last people wearing a watch all day every day on Earth. This wouldn’t be so bad if non-watch wearers weren’t needlessly smug and superior about their choice, just like those people who feel the need to tell you they don’t have a TV or run no-script in their browsers. For me, it is for requirement at work (we’re not allowed to cell phones or ipods or laptops in our building) and simple convenience elsewhere: even at home, where there are a lot of clocks around, I find it faster and easier to look at my wrist than to walk to the nearest room with a clock, or even fish out my cell phone, turn it on, turn it off, and put it back in my pocket. 

          That said, even if space poses similar challenges (lots of clocks, not necessarily where you need to look at them) I guess he could have taken a lighter watch.

          • ocker3

            Last year I asked for a nice watch as a Birthday present, since I plan on shortly moving towards a management role and it will be useful. I can check the time during a meeting while my phone is off. I could use aeroplane mode, but it might still look like I’m playing games or something.

  • noggin

    While I have always enjoyed the “Here’s How Astronauts Do The Simplest Things In Zero-G” videos, (this one answered a question I was pondering just yesterday), I would love to see a lot more short vignettes like this that describe an ongoing experiment on the ISS. 

  • http://twitter.com/godzig Mike Godwin

    Whoa, forget the nails. I want to see the “trim your stache in space” episode.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Do you really want to start down that road?

  • abstracht

    this might work better:  kk.org/cooltools/archives/6214

    tl;dr summary: nail clippers that capture the clippings inside the mechanism

    • ocker3

      Quite a better mousetrap, I suggest the Japanese send some of these up ASAP, they’ll skyrocket in popularity once word gets out!

  • nonenoneno

    A bit of tape on either side of the “jaws” keeps the nail bits from flying out the sides. (Tiny pieces actually stick to the tape.) When you’re done just peel the tape into the garbage and presto, no mess.

  • Jack Daniel

    Tune in next week for Snot Rockets, IN SPACE! 

  • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

    You could build a bed for microgravity this way. Consider a structure like a trampoline with a wide sweep fan under it. The fan sucks air through the mesh of the trampoline. Air movement makes your bedding stick to the bed. It also draws air past your face, preventing the build up of stale air near your body.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Joel-Turner/679875041 Joel Turner

    How about turning on the number two side of the toilet, the vacuum is designed to pull things far larger than a tiny fingernail clipping.

  • http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

    Speaking as a USAian with a serious and growing case of Canadophilia, I would just like to say that we need more Canadians in space. This is the same guy who tweets his space snapshots and tweeted fellow Canadian William Shatner in perfect Trek-speak. I fully support the Canadian space program, and look forward to seeing the first Canadian on Mars.

    [OT: A few years back, there was a hilarious SF comedy serial on CBC-radio about the lone Canadian starship in a US-led invasion of a distant star system believed by future-POTUS to have Weapons of Planetary Destruction. IIRC, the Canadian ship provided "logistics support," consisting of vending machines and video games. I once owned a dubious MP3 rip which I lost in a hard-drive crash. The captain was a man from Toronto, and the mate was a Quebecois separatist woman. Does anyone remember the title, in case I wanted to find another dubious MP3 rip?]

    • http://vincenzoravina.tumblr.com/ Vincenzo Ravina

       That radio play sounds hilarious. I would also like to know the title of that…

      Also, how did you become afflicted with Canadophilia? (I run a Canadian media site — http://polargrizz.com)

  • Mr. Son

    “In practice, every unsecured object comes to rest against an air vent.”

    http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff900/fv00900.htm

    I actually saved that strip to my computer as a reminder for if I ever get around to that space story I was thinking about writing.

  • http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

    @vravina:disqus : I guess I first started becoming a Canadophiliac because of comedy — SCTV during my college years, and KitH in young adulthood. But then there were beer runs to Sault Ste. Marie when I lived in the UP, a college trip to York and Etobicoke, and a wonderful 10 days spent in Montreal during the 1996 Jazz Festival. Then the Internet came along just as I was discovering audio dramas, and I discovered Nightfall, Vanishing Point, and CBC Mystery Theater. (Also, the 1980s was the heyday of independent Canadian TV shows syndicated on late-night US UHF stations — remember The Hitchhiker? Tales from the Darkside? That one about the haunted antiques with the hot redhead?) And then there’s all the great Canadian bloggers I follow (check out Ian Cromwell from Vancouver), among whom I suppose Cory counts, unless he’s considered British now.

    It’s not all gee-whiz fantasy, I realize that if I lived in Canada, the shine would probably wear off, especially with the Harper gov’t, but there’s something about the subtle diffs between the US and Canada endlessly fascinates me. Somehow, I think we can both look at the situation like some kind of alternate history novel, except played out in real life and real lives.

    It’s late and I need to go to bed, but I’ll be sure to check out polargrizz.com in the A.M.

    • http://twitter.com/ErnestValdemar Ernest Valdemar

      Also (and I’m getting way off topic here), anyone who’s interested in alternate history, golden-age SF, Canada, radio plays, or WWII, really needs to check the gloriously giddy propaganda broadcast Nazi Eyes on Canada, a delirious imagining of a Canada overrun by Nazis and Japanese.

  • MarkmBha

    Very clever (and simple)!