I virtually drowned in area when my helmet full of water

When the water reached my face, it unfold over my nostril and up into my nostrils instantly. I used to be virtually blinded, I couldn’t hear something and I couldn’t breathe by way of my nostril. I already knew I wanted to achieve the airlock and get again contained in the Worldwide Area Station. The important thing query: how lengthy did I’ve earlier than the water reached my mouth and I couldn’t breathe in any respect?

If you go on a spacewalk, you enter a brand new world. It’s an extremely privileged perspective. Contained in the ISS and searching by way of the home windows of the cupola, you’re nonetheless inhabiting the protected world of the area station. It’s like staring into a big and actually lovely aquarium. However after I go away the ISS for a spacewalk, I’m immersed within the void. I’m in an atmosphere that doesn’t want me. If I wasn’t inside my spacesuit, I’d be lifeless inside minutes.

The infinite horizon of stars and blackness is so vivid. On one in all my spacewalks, I used to be being moved from one aspect of the area station to the opposite on a robotic arm. I used to be connected to the arm by my toes. I had no body of reference as a result of the area station was behind me, Earth was behind me. And for the primary time in my life, I perceived the three-dimensionality of area. Perhaps it was as a result of I used to be drawing on my data of astrophysics, however I felt I might see this sponge-like tissue of bubbles or voids surrounded by all these large mild sources. Since then, I’ve tried to relive that second. However I haven’t been in a position to do it.

I’ve completed six spacewalks to this point. The water leak was throughout my second, on 16 July 2013. It was uncomfortable, for positive, after I first felt the chilly fluid on the again of my head. However then, clearly, I nonetheless went by way of the usual process. I known as the bottom: “Hey, I really feel water behind my helmet, FYI – to your data.” The “FYI” was me saying: I’m nonetheless good and I’m nonetheless able to proceed with the spacewalk.

I used to be instructed to await directions. Then they requested if I knew the place the water was coming from. I didn’t. However by then, I might really feel it was accumulating. Water behaves in another way once you take away the results of gravity. Capillarity works very well to transfer it from one place to a different throughout a floor.

Lots of people, once they consider a spacesuit, they’re imagining films like Gravity or The Martian. The helmets in these films are actually massive. You’ve paid $100 million to have a selected actor, so that you want a giant helmet to see their face. No person needs to see my face, so our helmets are comparatively small. There isn’t a lot area between the helmet and my face. The water was flowing on this small area, and it stuffed up comparatively quick. After my ears turned blocked, I couldn’t hear a lot, and I additionally started to understand that the individuals on the bottom couldn’t hear me both.

Then the solar set. If you’re flying round Earth, you’ve got a sundown and dawn each 45 minutes. A spacewalk lasts about six to seven hours, so lots of it’s completed at night time. The sundown was a complicating issue. I might see what I had straight in entrance of me even regardless of the water, due to the illumination from the lights on my helmet. However the second I attempted to look additional away, I couldn’t make something out. I couldn’t deal with distant objects with the water in entrance of my eyes.

I nonetheless didn’t know the place the water was coming from. However in that second, it wasn’t necessary. What was necessary was that I had this ticking timer telling me to behave. I may need 10 minutes left. Or 5 minutes. And even simply 1 minute. I couldn’t management that, however I might management my behaviour.

Earlier than turning into an astronaut, I used to be a pilot, then I turned a fighter pilot, then a take a look at pilot. I discovered on day one in all flight college that there are three actions to absorb an emergency: I preserve management, I analyse the state of affairs, and I take the correct motion.

The right motion was to seek out my method again to the airlock. The subsequent step was to work out how to try this. There are handles on the surface of the area station that assist us transfer round. I knew I might use these to achieve the airlock. I requested myself: can I see the subsequent deal with? I can’t see it, it’s too distant. Can I work out the place it’s by reaching and feeling with my hand? I can. Following my tether, anchored to the airlock, I can start transferring in the appropriate path.

However transferring in a spacesuit is more durable than you most likely assume it will be. The swimsuit is pressurised and that strain is a pressure reacting towards your muscular tissues. To maneuver, you need to struggle that pressure. And your fingers and fingers, there aren’t any robust muscular tissues there. So each time you wish to maintain an object, like a deal with, the forces are so robust it feels such as you’re having to squeeze a tennis ball.

That final a part of the spacewalk felt like a really very long time, an eternity. My thoughts slowed the whole lot down. In actuality, it was solely 7 minutes earlier than I used to be again within the airlock. In these 7 minutes, they couldn’t hear me on the bottom and so they didn’t know the way I used to be doing. However I later discovered that they didn’t realise I used to be in hassle as a result of my coronary heart charge by no means modified. It stayed regular. I managed my response.

I can nonetheless relive that spacewalk, but it surely’s not always in my head. It’s not one thing that modified me, though it did change us all operationally. We found {that a} blocked filter brought on the failure, so we modified our procedures to search for that earlier than spacewalks. We additionally added a snorkel to the spacesuits, so if the helmet fills with water, we are able to use the snorkel to breathe from the air within the physique chamber. So this occasion is rarely going to occur once more. That’s the silver lining.

I’d by no means disagree with anyone saying what astronauts do is extraordinary. What we’re in a position to do is extraordinary. However that doesn’t make us extraordinary individuals. It makes us regular individuals who have the coaching to do a rare job.

As instructed to Colin Barras