133
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Could Apollo astronauts stand up if they fell on the moon?
I believe it was John Young, during an Apollo 16 EVA fell to the lunar surface. Though awkward, he got up unassisted by attempting a series of what looks like push-ups until he was able to get ...
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79
votes
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Why do astronauts wear heels?
That only looks like a heel! As shown here, it's a "foot restraint interface"!
That said, it probably makes walking around in the training facilities a lot easier. Although that doesn't ...
- 178k
75
votes
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How do astronauts on EVA deal with nose itching?
According to Chris Hadfield's answer during his Reddit AMA:
"We have a squishy thing inside we jam our nose into while we clear our ears — we scratch our nose on that."
The "squishy thing" is ...
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59
votes
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Assuming a spacecraft is traveling in a constant rate and our Astronaut will exit it to a space walk, will she be "left behind" by the spacecraft?
As long as neither spacecraft nor the astronaut are accelerating or decelerating, the relative speed of the spacecraft and the astronaut remains the same. So the astronaut will hover near the ...
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58
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Could Apollo astronauts stand up if they fell on the moon?
As always, the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal is a treasure trove of annotated examples. During the later (J) missions in particular, Ed Fendell, remotely operating the rover's TV camera, managed to ...
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42
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How did the Apollo astronauts change film in their cameras?
These cameras had magazines that could be exchanged in the middle of a roll (and that was one reason NASA chose them).
Here's a photo of John Young exchanging a magazine during an EVA on Apollo 16:
...
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41
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What sounds do astronauts hear inside their helmets during an EVA?
Tom Jones talks about it some in his memoir "Skywalking" when he describes an EVA carried out on shuttle mission STS-98:
Inside the airlock when it is pressurized
Through the helmet shell, from ...
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39
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What are the Advantages of having a Double-pane Space Helmet?
The outer pane is just a replaceable protection of the inner pane against scratches, dirt, and abrasion.
The helmet on the suits for Artemis missions will also feature a
quick-swap protective ...
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35
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Assuming a spacecraft is traveling in a constant rate and our Astronaut will exit it to a space walk, will she be "left behind" by the spacecraft?
It turns out that outer space is not a perfect vacuum: there are a few hydrogen atoms per cubic centimeter. (reference)
For large X, non-relativistic physics, the astronaut and spacecraft will stay ...
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32
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Could Apollo astronauts stand up if they fell on the moon?
Despite Charlie Duke's concern about it, given that the PLSS is massive, and would shift an astronaut's center of gravity far back from their natural distribution, it would be surprising if the ...
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31
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Are there any plans for handling people floating away during an EVA?
A nitrogen cold jet thruster system called SAFER (Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue) is part of the US EVA suit ensemble. If a crewperson gets loose they can fly back using SAFER.
(Image source)
SAFER ...
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31
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How do EVA suits manage water excretion?
The shuttle (and ISS) EMU (Extravehicular Mobility Unit) has a condensing heat exchanger as part of its ventilation loop. The condensate is stored, used for cooling, and the excess is drained after ...
- 178k
30
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How long does it take to get from a spacewalk to being inside the ISS and out of your suit in an emergency?
Although not the incident you are referring to, an incident outside the ISS in 2013 during EVA 23 is a good reference point for your question -- where Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano had water ...
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30
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Apollo command module space walk?
They did. Apollo 15, 16, and 17 has an EVA to recover film from cameras in the Scientific Instrument Module Bay (SIMBay) on the Service Module to bring back inside.
This table, linked, shows all the ...
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28
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Why won't JWST deploy in LEO where it is potentially serviceable?
JWST is being launched on an Ariane V with a cryogenic upper stage. That upper stage has to be used immediately to launch it on a trajectory to the Sun-Earth L2. The stage operates on batteries, and ...
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28
votes
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The Loose Astronaut
This is a great question. I wanted to provide an answer which cited some specific, real-world situations. Currently the only people in space are those aboard the International Space Station. If anyone ...
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26
votes
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Were cosmonauts equipped with poison pills?
I went on a quest to try and get the sources for all the citations for that article; I was partially successful. I have FOIA requests out for the documents I was not able to find on the internet, and ...
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26
votes
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How did Apollo 15's depressurization work?
The CSM was always able to be depressurized, since the contingency procedure for getting back from the LM to the CSM, in case the docking mechanism would fail to latch or the doors were unable to open,...
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25
votes
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Are the EVA suits used in the ISS and in the NBL same or different?
The suits used in the NBL are Class III "training only".
The Display and Control Module (control panel on the chest), the life support backpack, and the SAFER self-rescue unit are mocked-up.
...
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24
votes
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Spatial screwdriver
The Pistol Grip Tool has some features not found in DIY or even professional cordless drills.
It can control its torque and speed exactly, and torque/speed/turn count values can be programmed. It ...
- 125k
24
votes
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Why is this astronaut placing a radar reflector?
This was mission STS-61B. The giveaways are the ACCESS payload box and the Mexico logo on the PAM-D sunshield.
The last task of the first EVA was to deploy a small satellite (the radar reflector) to ...
- 178k
24
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Does the speed of ISS slow down at the time of a spacewalk or does it become stationary?
Let's look at Newton's first law:
Law I: Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force ...
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23
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How do astronauts on EVA deal with nose itching?
From Retro Space Images's FaceBook post:
Gene Cernan scratches the itch during an Apollo 17 training session at KSC.
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21
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Assuming a spacecraft is traveling in a constant rate and our Astronaut will exit it to a space walk, will she be "left behind" by the spacecraft?
I feel this sort of question benefits from a series of thought experiments.
Imagine instead that you've got two astronauts, side by side, zipping through space at some constant speed.
They're kind ...
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21
votes
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How was the cosmonaut of the Soviet moon mission supposed to get back in the return vehicle?
There are good diagrams of the Kontakt docking system in the Mir Hardware Heritage document by Portree.
As stated in comments, this was an unpowered, misalignment-tolerant docking system that did not ...
- 178k
20
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The Loose Astronaut
Once the astronaut & space vehicle part ways, they're on two separate orbits. If the force that separated them is impulsive (instantaneous force in a single direction - as in pushing off the ...
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20
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What are the "Big 13" critical contingency spacewalks on the ISS? Have any actually been performed?
The Big 131 are
Pump Module (PM) R&R
Flex Hose Rotary Coupler (FHRC) R&R
Interface Heat Exchanger (IFHX) R&R
Solar Array Wing (SAW) Bearing Motor Roll Ring Module (BMRRM) R&R
SAW ...
- 178k
18
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How do astronauts on EVA deal with nose itching?
How about Willpower? Every Soldier learns to stand still at a parade or when they got to pledge loyalty. When I had my inauguration at the Austrian Military forces, we all had to stand still for ...
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18
votes
Why won't JWST deploy in LEO where it is potentially serviceable?
The James Webb Space Telescope will not be deployed in Low Earth Orbit because there is too great a risk of the optics being damaged by debris.
[T]he environment around the ISS is not suitable for ...
- 23.8k
18
votes
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Apollo Suit sublimation coolers
Wikipedia says:
As an example, during the Apollo 12 commander's first EVA (of 3 hrs, 44 minutes), 4.75 lb of feedwater were sublimated, and this dissipated 894.4 Btu / hr.
That's 2.154 kg of water ...
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Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible