May 29, 2007—Two spacewalkers will venture outside the International Space Station on Wednesday, with some extra safety concerns. Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov will work with the same bundles of electrical cables that may have cut the spacesuit glove of NASA Astronaut Robert Curbeam back in December.

During that late 2006 flight, Curbeam was one of the spacewalkers rewiring the station’s power supply at locations outside the outpost with nicknames like the "Christmas tree" and the "rat’s nest." Somewhere during the mission, something made a three-quarter inch long cut in the outer fabric of his spacesuit glove. None of the protective inner layers of the glove were damaged, and NASA says Curbeam was never in any danger, but the space station spacewalkers received extra safety training as a result.

Sharp edges have long been a concern for spacewalking astronauts. During the writing of my book "Final Countdown" for University Press of Florida, which is due out in October, I interviewed Astronaut Dan Brandenstein. He led the 1992 Endeavour mission where three spacewalkers reached up and grabbed the wayward Intelsat 6 satellite. That spacecraft had no handrails for the astronauts to take hold of, so the sharp edge issue was huge. Brandenstein recalled one pre-launch practice session where spacewalker Pierre Thuot put on spacesuit gloves and hacked at them with the same kind of sharp edged titanium he’d experience in orbit. There were no cuts, at least for that shuttle crew.

As an aside, one of Robert Curbeam’s crewmates on last December’s shuttle mission was astronaut Bill Oefelein. That would turn out to be his only spaceflight. NASA last Friday ended his space career following heavy coverage of his involvement in the Lisa Nowak "love triangle". Oefelein will return to his duties as a U.S. Navy Commander.