"Thingamajig" should do very well, cheers. And we've got thingamajigs in America too, so I feel slightly more comfortable with employing it. ("Post" was very hard to use; I had to wipe the word "mail" from my head for the duration.) Don't think I've heard "oojamaflip" before, how very amusing.

Yeah, I was trying to decide if it was just that she reminds me of Han Solo and Indiana Jones, who are both about as American as it gets. Fair point, though, about the retro-futuristic-American-ness of space.