Duct Tape from the International Space Station

Hello Omers and all others interested in Duct Tape. Hope everyone had a safe return home after the 2014 World Finals in Ames, Iowa. Great week and hope that many visitors will be checking this blog to see and help with collection rolls of Duct Tape from all over the world.

Since collection my first roll from an OM team from China on 5-31-04 at Maryland World Finals a lot has happened. One of the highlights was getting duct tape (called cargo tape) that was on the ISS.

The story goes like this - In 2006 my students were in the process of laying out a full sized outline of the ISS on the playground next to the school. I saw a news report of a live video call that an astronaut on board the ISS was making to students of Winter High School in Winter, Wisconsin USA. This caught my attention and I found out that the astronaut was ISS-13 Science Officer Jeff Williams from Winter, WI. I knew that NASA used Duct Tape and had seen pictures taken inside the ISS where rolls of Duct Tape were visible. I thought how cool it would be to get a roll from the ISS signed by an astronaut. Thinking that maybe Jeff's parents might still live in Winter I searched and sure enough. There was a Lloyd Williams listen. I mailed a letter telling Lloyd about OM and duct tape and if he thought Jeff might be able to help us out. He contacted Jeff on the ISS for the next six months and Jeff said he was interested and would help us out.

He would not be able to bring back a roll, however, he made a project out of it and in true OM fashion solved the problem.  Jeff covered an ISS Cue Card with Cargo Tape. Then got the three ISS 13 astronauts to sign it. During the next six months STS  115 and STS 121 made trips to the ISS and Jeff got them to also sign the tape!  Fifteen astronauts in all!! The signatures are in three columns and I have listed each below with their mission number if you want to do more research on them.

1st Column
Wisconsin - Jeff Williams - ISS 13  MS
New Jersey - Mark Kelly - STS 121 Pilot
Washington DC - Lisa Nowak - STS 121 MS
Massachusetts - Stephanie Wilson - STS121 MS

2nd Column
California - Steven Lindsey - STS121 CMD
South Dakota - Mike Fossum - STS 121 MS
United Kingdom - Piers Sellers - STS 121 MS
Russia - Pavel Vinogradov - ISS 13 CMD

3rd Column
Michigan - Brent Jett - STS 115 CMD
Canada - Steven MacLean - STS 115 MS
Germany - Thomas Reiter - STS 121 and Expedition 13
Illinois - Joe Tanner - STS 115 MS
Pennsylvania - Chris Ferguson - STS 115 Pilot
Connecticut - Dan Burbank - STS 115 MS
Minnesota - Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper  - STS 115 MS

This is the folder I keep "the tape from space" in. 

And now you know the story about "the tape from space". I hope that you enjoy and might be able to help or spread the word about this blog to get signed rolls of Duct Tape from the world countries I don't have. Check the list found on the previous blog entry. Keep checking for new rolls being added and the story that goes with them. Maybe you will be part of the story.

Remember - Duct Tape holds the world together.