[TWIAR] Astronaut, Cosmonaut Take Spacewalk

[Greg Williams]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - An American astronaut and a Russian
cosmonaut ventured out on a spacewalk Monday to move a construction
crane and install a radio antenna on the international space station.

It was the first spacewalk for Carl Walz and Yuri Onufrienko since they
moved into the space station last month. Walz was the first one out,
exiting 250 miles above the Pacific.

The spacewalkers complained of a continual high-pitched beeping as they
floated outside. After a half-hour, the tone finally stopped. Russian
engineers were not certain what caused the noise in the spacesuits.

The two later complained of the cold. ``We're shivering,'' Onufrienko
told Russia's Mission Control as the space station flew around the dark
side of Earth. He was assured all medical criteria were being met.

Walz and Onufrienko spent most of their six-hour spacewalk moving a
Russian-built crane, nearly 50 feet long when fully extended. They used
another, virtually identical crane to move the boom from its temporary
berth on the U.S. side of the orbiting outpost to a permanent location
on the Russian side.

``That is excellent,'' Mission Control radioed. ``Good job.''

Both cranes ended up, as planned, on the Russian docking compartment
that was launched in September. Each boom is capable of moving more than
3 tons of equipment.

The spacewalkers also installed the first of four ham radio antennas on
the living quarters of the space station. Before going back inside, the
men wiped their spacewalking gloves to avoid any possible contamination
from thruster fuel.

The space station's third resident, American astronaut Daniel Bursch,
monitored the spacewalk from inside.

The crew - the fourth to live on the space station - will remain on
board until May.

Dishnut-P


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