NASA spacesuit leaks again, how dangerous is it? There have been astronauts who nearly drowned

In our impression, the United States seems to spend money "big", to complete the Apollo manned lunar landing program, almost all the country's efforts, huge human, material, and financial resources, and finally, in 1969 the first manned lunar landing was completed. After the manned lunar landing program, the United States also manufactured a reusable space shuttle. It seems that the financial strength of the United States, but sometimes also to repair, a device with decades, for example, the United States is now using the spacesuit has been more than 40 years.

We know that spacesuits are very important for astronauts, especially when astronauts need to leave the spacecraft, or space stations into outer space for spacewalks, the suit is the astronaut's "protective shield". On the one hand, these extra-vehicular suits can create a constant temperature and pressure environment for the astronauts out of the cabin, because outer space is almost a vacuum, not only is no air, but the temperature is also very low. On the other hand, the extravehicular suits will protect these astronauts from all kinds of rays from the universe, and can also reach some small debris of relatively small size. Since the extravehicular suits are very important, there cannot be any mistakes during the spacewalk, and if any problems are found, the spacewalk will be canceled or postponed. This is not, the United States NASA originally planned to carry out a spacewalk, but the suit has a problem, so the spacewalk mission is suspended. What's going on here?

NASA spacesuit leaks again

According to a report on May 24, 2022, NASA announced that it has suspended all spacewalks, and the reason for the suspension is that the aging of the International Space Station has a water leak problem. The most recent leak was on March 23 of this year, when European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Mauser, who was on a spacewalk mission, found some water in his mask. NASA said they are finally considering the risk profile of these aging suits, and until this one situation is investigated, these extravehicular suits will not be available for spacewalk missions.

This is not a problem with the U.S. extravehicular spacesuits leaking, there was also a leak back in 2013 when European Space Agency astronaut Lucas Palomino was on an exit activity and had to end the spacewalk early due to 1.5 liters of water entering the helmet of the suit, causing him to have difficulty breathing. In 2015, an astronaut also nearly drowned because of a water leak during his exit activity.

Because of the safety issues, it is very dangerous to wear these problematic extravehicular spacesuits for spacewalks, so in 2019, NASA launched a new spacesuit planned for the upcoming Artemis manned return to the moon program in 2024. However, since the new spacesuits are quite costly, possibly up to $500 million, the shortage of funds has led to delays in the deployment of new spacesuits. Therefore, NASAL hopes that the existing spacesuits will be delayed until 2028. However, these spacesuits are now constantly leaking, so it is a question of whether they will continue to be used next.

Why the extravehicular spacesuits are not used a few times to throw away?

The function of the extravehicular spacesuits is quite powerful, almost equivalent to a manned spaceship some equipment is condensed into this set of equipment, a manned spaceship has the function, extravehicular spacesuits have, and because the space of the extravehicular spacesuits is much smaller than the ship, so the development of these extravehicular spacesuits is quite difficult, so far only China, the United States, Russia can do so. Also because of the manufacturing difficulty, a lot of black technology in one, so these extravehicular spacesuits are very expensive, maybe as high as tens of millions of yuan or even hundreds of millions of dollars.

Although the cost is very high, the use of these extravehicular spacesuits is very limited, for example, the Russian Sea hawk extravehicular spacesuits are used only 12 times, to reach the number of times after the use of this Sea hawk extravehicular spacesuits will be loaded to the Progress cargo ship, and then followed by the Progress cargo ship back to Earth. As the Progress spacecraft will not land on the Earth's surface but re-enter the atmosphere to burn, this Sea hawk extravehicular spacesuits are also "thrown" into the atmosphere to burn.

At present, these extravehicular spacesuits are generally put into the cargo spacecraft after use, followed by the cargo spacecraft back to Earth, burned in the atmosphere rather than into the manned spacecraft. Because manned spacecraft generally only return to Earth, and the return capsule space is relatively limited, and needs to carry more than one astronaut, the height of these extravehicular spacesuits may reach about 2 meters, weighing hundreds of kilograms, so heavy, so large extravehicular spacesuits if loaded into the manned spacecraft, it will make the space inside the return capsule becomes more crowded, and comfort will be greatly reduced.

Of course, there are some exceptions, there are some cargo spacecraft in the re-entry to Earth not in the atmosphere burned, but return to the ground, for example, Space's cargo Dragon spacecraft can land on the ground. So, now that NASA's spacesuits are constantly leaking, they plan to bring them back to Earth in early June this year with the Cargo Dragon spacecraft so that they can be inspected by Earth's engineers.

Russia's Sea hawk extravehicular spacesuit was thrown away after 12 uses, and this U.S. suit has been used for more than 40 years. Is it because the U.S. extravehicular spacesuit is more technologically advanced? In 1974, to meet the space shuttle astronauts out of the cabin to complete a series of space installation, and maintenance tasks, the United States NASA developed 18 sets of extravehicular spacesuits. There are 2 sets of extravehicular spacesuits were damaged during the test, 4 sets were destroyed in the space shuttle accident, 1 set was also destroyed in the Falcon 9 rocket explosion, most of the remaining spacesuits have various faults, and only 4 sets of extravehicular spacesuits can barely use.

Before the shuttle was retired, these spacesuits were able to be brought back to Earth in the shuttle's huge cargo bay for repair and replacement of some parts, and then the shuttle was retired, but Space's cargo Dragon spacecraft was also able to return to Earth, so in principle, they could also be brought back to Earth for repair. That's how, with a little tinkering, these extravehicular spacesuits have been used for more than 40 years. This is not to say that U.S. extravehicular suits are more advanced than Russian or Chinese ones, but if we also bring them back for repair or replacement of parts, they can also last for a long time. However, tinkering may increase the safety risks, after all, space flight is a relatively dangerous thing.