OH NO! This cannot be good. (From Slashdot.org)

Space Rope Trick Experiment Goes Awry

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday September 26, @11:28AM
from the harder-than-lassoing-cattle dept.

Tjeerd writes “An experiment that envisaged sending a parcel from space to Earth on a 30-kilometre tether fell short of its goal yesterday when the long fibre rope did not fully unwind, Russian Mission Control said. It was intended to deliver a spherical capsule, called Fotino, attached to the end of the tether back to Earth — a relatively simple and cheap technology that could be used in the future to retrieve bulkier cargoes from space.””