This week's collaboration with the What is it? Blog brings us this wonderfully strange contraption. It has a very specific (and awesome) function - can you tell us what it is for?

Place your guess in the comment section. No prize this week, so you're playing for fame and glory only. For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog. Good luck!

A Marquardt Space Sled, designed for individual space maneuvering in the vicinity of a spacecraft, this design was never used and instead they went with the shuttle manned maneuvering unit.

Update 1/30/09 - the answer is:No one got it right! Score one for Neatorama and the What is it? blog!