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How An Astronaut Nearly Drowned During a Space Walk
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "About 44 minutes into a 6.5-hour spacewalk last July, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano noted that water was building up inside his helmet – the second consecutive spacewalk during which he reported the problem. As Parmitano worked his way back to the air lock, water covered his eyes, filled his ears, disrupted communications, and eventually began to enter his nose, making it difficult for him to breathe. 'I know that if the water does overwhelm me I can always open the helmet,' wrote Parmitano about making it to the airlock. 'I'll probably lose consciousness, but in any case that would be better than drowning inside the helmet.' Later, when crew mates removed his helmet, they found that it contained at least 1.5 quarts of water. In a 122-page report released Wednesday, a mishap investigation board identified a range of causes for the near-tragedy, including organizational causes that carried echoes of accident reports that followed the loss of the shuttles Challenger and Columbia and their crews in 1986 and 2003. Engineers traced the leak to a fan-and-pump assembly that is part of a system that extracts moisture from the air inside the suit and returns it to the suit's water-based cooling system. Contaminants clogged holes that would have carried the water to the cooling system after it was extracted from the air. The water backed up and flowed into the suit's air-circulation system, which sent it into Parmitano's helmet (PDF).
The specific cause of the contamination is still under investigation but investigators also identified deeper causes, one of which involved what some accident-investigation specialists have dubbed the 'normalization of deviance' – small malfunctions that appear so often that eventually they are accepted as normal. In this case, small water leaks had been observed in space-suit helmets for years, despite the knowledge that the water could form a film on the inside of a helmet, fogging the visor or reacting with antifogging chemicals on the visor in ways that irritate eyes. NASA officials are not planning on resuming non-urgent spacewalks before addressing all 16 of the highest priority suggestions from the Mishap Investigation Board. 'I think it's a tribute to the agency that we're not hiding this stuff, that we're actually out trying to describe these things, and to describe where we can get better,' says William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. 'I think that's how we prevent Columbias and Challengers.'"
The specific cause of the contamination is still under investigation but investigators also identified deeper causes, one of which involved what some accident-investigation specialists have dubbed the 'normalization of deviance' – small malfunctions that appear so often that eventually they are accepted as normal. In this case, small water leaks had been observed in space-suit helmets for years, despite the knowledge that the water could form a film on the inside of a helmet, fogging the visor or reacting with antifogging chemicals on the visor in ways that irritate eyes. NASA officials are not planning on resuming non-urgent spacewalks before addressing all 16 of the highest priority suggestions from the Mishap Investigation Board. 'I think it's a tribute to the agency that we're not hiding this stuff, that we're actually out trying to describe these things, and to describe where we can get better,' says William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate. 'I think that's how we prevent Columbias and Challengers.'"
Don't go into space again. Ever!
Later, when crew mates removed his helmet, they found that it contained at least 1.5 quarts of water.
Or at least 1.5 liters of water, if you're Canadian.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Was that 1.5 quarters of eight American or English pints?
at least it wasn't a failure of the space suit's urine collection system...
Was that actually a good summary for once, or the entire article!
I guess it stops the usual misinformed, ignorant posts based on a couple of sensationalist headline based loosely upon something that was slightly related to the article from being posted.
Couldn't he have, you know, drank the water that was building up?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Rodney McKay would have had this problem solved already.
Seems like a good temporary solution until he could get back to the airlock.
Given the fact that astronauts and cosmonauts have only died trying to launch from, and land on, the Earth, space itself seems surprisingly safe.
It's probably because all the excitement and explosions occur at the taking off and landing, and most of our actual time in space is spent traveling in big circles.
What is a quart?
Big bang space toilet episode comes to mind.
'I think it's a tribute to the agency that we're not hiding this stuff, that we're actually out trying to describe these things, and to describe where we can get better."
Except you were hiding it, for years. You only revealed it when it caused such a crisis that it could not longer be hidden.
"normalization of deviance" is what caused the problems. I can see fundamentalists having a field day with that one.
Actually looking directly at the problem is the only way to fix it ultimately.
I like Bob Lewis' take on investigations in a blog he wrote about NASA vs other government Agencies.
http://www.issurvivor.com/shop...
They ignore obviously risk laden malfunctions and events until someone is killed or put in serious jeopardy in a public manner. If this astronaut had not almost drowned the issue would still be getting ignored.
Time, and time again NASA managers ignore risk and push the "go" mentality. I can't think of a single death or significant injury/risk in the NASA programs where the end result of investigation was "well, it was an unforeseeable accident". Each and every case I recall there were engineers saying "there's a problem we need to fix" and managers just kept ignoring it. From Gemini and Apollo through the SST and now the ISS; this is a disease at the core of NASA that needs to be sterilized.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
Yup!
That first line, 'I think it's a tribute to the agency that we're not hiding this stuff", pretty much sums up our present political atmosphere, and attitude towards certain government funded agencies. Absolutely unebievable.
If this was a commercial enterprise, two thirds of the posts here would be anti-corporate only-seeking-profit kind of posts. However even government institutions, which are supposed to be above profit as a motivator, are prone to ignoring constant malfunctions and not addressing "organizational malfunctions not addressed since previous tragedies". At least with profit as a motivator corporations are easy to manipulate; hit their bottom line for safety malfunctions and they'll solve the problem in no time.
Don't see any criticisms of government inefficiencies in any of the posts here though. Surprise, surprise.
Why is so hard to use sensible units of measure?
WHAT THE FUCK IS A QUART?
'I know that if the water does overwhelm me I can always open the helmet,' wrote Parmitano about making it to the airlock. 'I'll probably lose consciousness, but in any case that would be better than drowning inside the helmet.'
I must go now as I can no longer breathe, yours sincerely, astronaut dude.
Reminds me of Eddie Izzard's take on Pliny the Elder's letters from Pompeii.
Dear friends,
Fookin' top's come off the mountain! Ahhhh! Send ships and big ships, send ducks, send anything!
Love and kisses,
Pliny the Elder
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It seems like at least one option would've been to unseal the helmet and open it just enough to suck the air out of the suit - which hopefully would dislodge the water, or freeze it, which would give some time to fix the ice build up.
That would be a horrible way to die.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
That situation sounds extremely stressful.
Due to surface tension, water will flow along and hug a surface unless disrupted. So it does not have to fill the helmet, but just start crawling along the face into the nose and mouth. I've seen the micro-gravity video of someone slowly squeeze a water-full washcloth and the sheet of water crawl up his arm.
There's a new one for your nightmares.
Drowning in a thin-sheet of zero gravity water that slowly crawls over your head and face, that you cannot wipe away because you're wearing a space suit, that you cannot take off, because you are floating in space.
It's like something from fear factor. Imagine getting into a coffin with a window over your face, and you cannot move your arms/legs. And then you realize the coffin is full of tarantulas... because you feel them crawling up your body towards your face....
This guy keeping his cool is an excellent testament to the training they do back on the ground.
Reminds me of this article:
http://www.theonion.com/articl...
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I know this is a real thing but it sounds like something they made up on the spot. Sounds more like Aperture Science than NASA.
Obviously NASA thought the astronauts knew more than they were saying. This is just a conspiracy to cover up their interrogation technique.
"'I know that if the water does overwhelm me I can always open the helmet,' wrote Parmitano about making it to the airlock. 'I'll probably lose consciousness, but in any case that would be better than drowning inside the helmet." Wow that one cold mofo here.
Except you were hiding it, for years.
Hiding it? Then how come I watched it live streamed over the internet?
http://news.nationalpost.com/2...
Some fucking fucked up definition of "hiding" you have there. What's next? You'll accuse the US government of "hiding" the amount of national debt? Sometimes ignorance is *your own* fault. At least own up to it instead of hiding from the truth.
And the general leaks in seals were known. They were looked at and were deemed immaterial by everyone involved, including the astronauts. That's been known for as long as US has used water in their suits.
I bet slashdot editors laugh hard when they see people bitching about measurement units used in TFS. Every time i read summary with measurement units like quarts, football fields or yards ( and never SI ), it just feels like this is definitely intentional.
Mama Mia, she's a filling up a witha agua, Helpa, someabody helpa me, ima gonna drown!
We can't even master the HELMET after half a century of floating around in the upper atmosphere, but space elevators and Mars colonies are *just* around the (3D printed) corner! Of course. Sure.
NASA officials are not planning on resuming non-urgent spacewalks before addressing all 16 of the highest priority suggestions from the Mishap Investigation Board.
According to J, a member of the MIB, those spacesuits are old and busted.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
It's known in the space biz as "helmet boarding" and it is most certainly not torture. Now open up and start drinking you ugly terrorist!
He might have been able to keep drinking to stay alive.
'I think it's a tribute to the agency that we're not hiding this stuff, that we're actually out trying to do our job,' says William Gerstenmaier
Isn't there a radiohead video about this? Yep http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...