NASA astronaut explains the dreaded loss of a $100,000 bag in space

In November, it was announced that NASA astronauts lost a bag while conducting a spacewalk, and now one of those astronauts who returned to Earth recounted their first-hand experience.

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It is commonplace for astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to conduct spacewalks outside of the floating laboratory. These spacewalks involve various mission objects, such as repairing instruments and replacing old ones, both of which require tools to do so. During a spacewalk on November 2, 2023, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara were separated from their tool bag, and funnily enough, reports at the time stated it was possible to see the bag with a pair of binoculars in Earth's orbit.

Now, Moghbeli, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa have returned back to Earth's surface thanks to SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. The Crew-7 astronauts sat down for an interview where they discussed the difficulties of their stay aboard the ISS and the challenges of returning back to Earth, such as the slow adaptation to gravity.

As for the bag, Moghbeli explained what happened from her perspective.

"First spacewalk, Loral and I go out the door, and you know, you've trained years for this, it's a highlight, highlight of your career, and to go out there and, you know, most importantly we made it back in successfully and we accomplished the task. But losing that bag, and I'll tell you what happened from my perspective is, I went, I stowed that bag, and they have built in hooks on them, and I put it on a hand rail that I told the ground team beforehand I was going to stow it own.

And I remember it was even getting in my way, and I pushed it out of my way a few times, and then you know I was buy doing my task on the camera on at that point. An external camera on space station. And when I turned around, the bag was not there and that was honestly very, like my heart sank at that moment because I knew exactly where I'd put that bag down and it was no longer there which is obviously a big deal," said the NASA astronaut