Spacewalk Aborted When Water Fills Astronaut's Helmet

astroengine writes "A planned six-hour spacewalk outside the International Space Station came to a dramatic and abrupt end on Tuesday when water started building up inside the helmet of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano. Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy were less than an hour into their spacewalk, their second in a week, when Parmitano reported that his head felt wet. 'My head is really wet and I have a feeling it's increasing,' Parmitano reported to ground control teams at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Parmitano returned safely to the space station interior, but the cause of the leak was not immediately known."

Comments

Re:So a plastic tube leaks.. wow.

[garyebickford]

But this is the ISS, the over-budget, over-priced lab where the Italians made the trash module (DaVinci Module is a giant trashcan). Let's face it the ISS is a bit boring and dull. Oh look another crew oh look a spacewalk. Sorry if that's cynical but hell, let's go back to the moon, let's go to Mars or further instead of a few miles up.

I just have to chime in here. Things have changed. And whether it was too expensive or not, that's in the past.

Now, the ISS is a critical element in the commercial/private space research and development that will take us to those other places in a real, "moving in and staying" kinda way. Almost every piece of hardware and technology will be tested on the ISS before it goes anywhere. For example, right now on the ISS is a 3D printer being tested to see how it works in microgravity, and learn what engineering changes will be required. 3D printing, or 'additive manufacturing' is one of the critical enabling technologies for long term travel, such as trips to Mars. And a Bigelow expandable habitat will be sent up and attached to the ISS for long term testing, soon.

Believe it or not, today the govt. is actually working to get out of the way, and really allow the ISS to be as useful as it could be. I'm kinda involved in some of the 'New Space' efforts. One very cool thing that the govt has done is designate the ISS as a National Laboratory (like Los Alamos, LLL, Sandia, Argonne, etc.) and has set up a program to provide free access for qualifying research - free launch, free astronaut activities (limited to a bit of button pushing) and free return. Administration has been delegated to an NGO (CASIS). So this is a beyond-world-class scientific laboratory, available for free for whomever comes up with something interesting. And they (not just NASA, but several other agencies as well) _really_ want to show some good results - that's what will justify continued support.

This could be as important for space research and development as anything we've seen. Scheduling of experiments (built into one of the three standard rack systems, from the Nanorack size to full 19" rack) has changed so that, where in the past it could take two or three years to get an experiment approved and launched, now it's possible to get your experiment launched in a few months. It still will cost a company $300,000 or so to design, build, test and get through the approval process (quite a bit less for a volunteer/student project with free labor and scrounged materials) but this is a game changer.

One company I'm (distantly) involved with is doing biotech research, and plans to run two or more experiments per year over the next couple of years. If their research pans out, the fruit of that research may well justify at least the cost of running the station over that time.

TL;DR - the ISS is turning from a government boutique research facility into a major tool for independent R&D, and will be instrumental in making commercial space and space development economically and technically possible.