In free fall, objects have an uncanny ability to escape, then evade a search. According to Don Pettit, who lived on the International Space Station in 2003, part of the problem is the terrestrial habit of looking for lost items down at your feet. “In weightlessness, this is not an effective search strategy,” he says. “Even after months of living in space, the one thing I never lost was that reflex.”

¶ 3:29 PM