Spacewalkers Lug Each Other Around Open Cargo Bay

Two spacewalking astronauts took turns dragging one another along the edge of Endeavour’s open cargo bay Sunday in a grueling mass-handling demonstration 188 miles high.

“If you don’t think this is work you’re fooling yourself,” Gregory Harbaugh told his spacewalking partner, Mario Runco Jr., after carrying him from one end of the 60-foot-long bay to the other.

Harbaugh grasped a rail with one hand and held Runco, hanging upside down, with the other as he slowly made his way along the sill.

“I can tell you, this is pretty awesome from here,” Runco said, gawking at Earth as he was being carried. “People are right about that feeling you get when you look below your feet and nothing’s there.”

The spacewalkers then traded places.

The two had an easier time performing other spacewalking chores: Slipping into foot restraints and balancing themselves on the sill and clambering about the bay loaded down with wrenches, ratchets and other tools. They evaluated each task before moving on to the next.

The spacewalk lasted four hours, 27 minutes and 50 seconds, and was the first spacewalk by Americans in nearly a year.

The National Aeronautics and Space Adminisration added the spacewalk to the mission just two months ago so astronauts, trainers and flight controllers can be better prepared for the start of space station assembly in three years. Officials estimate a spacewalk will be required about every month or so to maintain the orbital outpost.

NASA flight director Chuck Shaw said spacewalking officials are “very, very pleased, pleased in the standpoint that they got through virtually all the tasks and pleased from the standpoint that they didn’t get any dramatic surprises.”