Travis and Michelle Fitzgerald's blog

A little excitement of a different sort in Mission Control today! Former President and Mrs. Bush came around to visit. While they were in the ISS control room, I got to explain one of our solar array repair tools, known as the “hinge replacement units"…or “cufflinks". Crew spent a good part of today building them out of materials on board such as 12 gauge wire, aluminum sheets, and tape–lots of tape. Basically, the solar array tore along some hinge points, so we made “cufflinks” to go from one side of the tear to the other to hold the array together. I had one of the prototypes on my console–a better one than the Flight Directors had, since my group had devised them–and the rest is history.

Michelle explains a “cufflink” to Bush Sr. and the JSC Center Director

I wish they could have gotten Mrs. Bush in the picture too, but as this is the only picture I have so far I shouldn’t complain! (By the way, the pumpkin is carved with Expedition 16’s logo…)

Update: We found a better picture!