IT gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "lost in space".
One of two spiders sent to the orbiting laboratory aboard the space shuttle Endeavour last week appears to be on the loose after the crew checked its tank and found it empty.
As part of the mission to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the International Space Station, NASA managers insisted that the second orb-weaver was not lost, it just couldn't be found, TimesOnline reported.
"We don't believe that it's escaped the overall payload enclosure," assured Kirk Shireman, NASA's deputy space station program manager.
"I'm sure we'll find him spinning a web sometime here in the next few days."
Astronauts suspect that the spider may have gone for a spacewalk into its neighbour's tank, though the pair were securely sealed off from one another and were meant to spend their three-month research mission apart.