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As Astronaut’s Helmet Filled With Water, He Told NASA Three Times It Wasn’t From The Drinking Bag
Luca Parmitano during a a spacewalk on July 16, 2013. An hour into the spacewalk, he reported water in his helmet and NASA cut the spacewalk short. Credit: NASA
While NASA’s Mission Control “performed admirably” during a spacewalk water leak crisis in July, a report on the incident showed that controllers did not send astronaut Luca Parmitano back to the airlock until after he made three calls saying the water didn’t appear to be from a drinking bag.
There are several reasons this happened, the mishap report says, such as inadequate training, the crew members and ground misunderstanding the severity of the situation, and a (false) perception that any water leak is likely due to a problem with the drinking bag.
Another big problem was the “normalization of deviance”, similar language to what was used during in reports describing the Challenger and Columbia incidents. In this case, small amounts of water in the helmet was expected, and controllers also misunderstood the cause of a carbon dioxide alarm (a fairly regular occurrence during spacewalks).
The report pulls no punches when it describes how bad things were: “The presence of this water created a condition that was life threatening.”
(…)
Read the rest of As Astronaut’s Helmet Filled With Water, He Told NASA Three Times It Wasn’t From The Drinking Bag (1,298 words)
© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: expedition 36, expedition 37, luca parmitano, spacesuit leak
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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/109814/as-astronauts-helmet-filled-with-water-he-told-nasa-three-times-it-wasnt-from-the-drinking-bag/
