Flip Those Intergalactic Pancakes, Man.

As many of you know, we currently have astronauts aboard the space shuttle orbiting overhead. The mission launched most appropriately on July 4th. The crew is set to return to earth on Monday, but will be leaving a little memento of their mission to fly around our planet for the rest of time.

While testing new methods of applying a heat shield repair substance the other day, one of the astronauts lost one of his tools. No matter what scientific name you wish to use, the space walker essentially lost a spatula designed to apply the new substance. The spatula will presumably now orbit the earth for a very, very long time until it falls to earth, hopefully in a harmless manner. In fact NASA notified personnel responsible for tracking almost 9,000 man-made objects in space of the new earth ‘satellite.’

Some of the objects that the spatula is joining can travel as fast as 17,500 mph. The list of debris in orbit includes a glove, a camera, booster rockets, non-working satellites, paint chips, the remains of Alderan (that’s for you Star Wars fans), half the movie sets for Moonraker (ok, made that one up, too) and even trash bags from the Soviet Mir space station(Hefty or Glad, I wonder). We can only hope that the next manned space mission loses a set of kitchen tongs to keep the spatula happy and provide a nice little gift set for whoever finds them.

By the way, here's an interesting photo I found representing all of the tracked space debris:

Is it just me or does it look like a flying saucer??