It seems that even astronauts have a need for a PSK:

http://www.eitb24.com/new/en/B24_53063/s...-sewing-kit-to/

My Siter's exhusband was trained as an astronaut back in the 1990's but he never flew on a mission. He said that when hew was equipped with his personal gear (he was on standby for several missions) they lead him into a room full of all kinds of gear. He said the first two things he grabbed were a SAK Swisschamp (I guess that had the most tools of anyting available) and some duct tape.
He said there were tables full of all kinds of stuff for survival.

That would be like being a kid in a candy store.

Space blankets suck, even for their original function in space

Should we tell NASA about AMK Heatsheets??

They used the fak to fix it, the medical stapler turned out to be the "right" tool for the job.

Jim,
They meant the thermal blanket of the shuttle not emergency blankets like the Space Blanket.
The thermal blanket protects the hull from damaging heat during re-entry.

Ah, I see, thanks.

Those depends diapers come in handy when you need to stalk your fellow astronauts too...that shuttle program manager stole my name.

A lot of the kits they have on board are Snap on tools and tools that were converted/modified for heaver use. Most of the kits are always on board in a emergency but after Columbia they now have to have a tile/blanket kit as well. The shuttle can go remote at any time as well as recover home mode in the event everyone on board dies. For being a 60's designed flying brick, it is loaded with avionics. The crew is along for the ride, they wont touch the controls to about 3 miles out on landing and that's because they were afraid to trust the auto landing mode which has never failed on all 4 systems. The biggest things in space is debris flying around, oxygen, water and radiation. All the on board medicine goes bad very quickly due to zero gravity and antibiotic loss and bone loss happens at a fast rate. So medicine becomes useless fast. I've been fortunate to say there was never an accident on my watch and hope there never will be.

Falcon,
Sounds like you work or worked for NASA; cool.

Yes billym, worked for them off and on for many years, I use to be a shuttle tech for many years but gave it up after way over a decade of working out there. The hazards we worked with was killing off my fellow workers a little after they retired, I decided I wanted to get a less stress for job that I could at least retire and live a few more years. I spent many years doing a lot of everything put there and it defiantly a cool place to work but it's all experimental and so is your carer. I have been fortunate to have never been out there during the accidents, but I did go back after Columbia's crash to help in the recovery. The survival suits were a real eye opener when I saw them. It wasn't a pleasant death by any means and my heart goes out to there family. We pulled part of the window out and it had aluminum, titanium, inconel, barilium, stainless steel, copper, boron and carbon fused in the glass. I had never seen anything like that on the planet. There's lot's of things that were bizarre about the crash, all over a big piece of foam.

What ever happened to the space lightning photos?

Most all videos and pictures are not only recorded on board but also sent telemetry back. I'm not sure if they were doing the lightning observations on that flight or not (didn't keep track of everything) but I know we had the mads recorder come back intact and the holy video. I call it the holy video because it was a camcorder tape that made it through reentry (plus 3000 degrees on the nose), fell to earth at terminal velocity and stayed out in the field in rain and heat for months and played the last photos of them playing around before they secured for reentry. It was almost like a farewell video. Kinda of freaky.

They aren't buried anyplace conspiratorial if that is what you are asking about- I saw them on Discover or National Geographic Channel about a month ago.

Strange Photo. Doesn't look like camera shake on a time lapse photo to me.