It was a SPACE spatula, dammit!
In the old days, NASA spent over $5K trying to develop an
electric razor that would collect beard stubble so it wouldn't
get loose in the spacecraft cabin and potentially harm any
instruments.
In the end, they figured out it was much cheaper and easier
to use a shaving foam that collected the stubble.
When I first saw the word spatula, I was thinking of the kind
that flips hamburgers on the grill and wondered just what the
heck were those astronauts testing out there in the cargo bay.