Astronaut recounts near-drowning experience
|Published
File photo: An investigation into the cause of the leak that flooded Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet and forced him to rush back inside the station in July is still ongoing. File photo: An investigation into the cause of the leak that flooded Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano's helmet and forced him to rush back inside the station in July is still ongoing.
Cape Canaveral - The Italian astronaut who nearly drowned during a spacewalk last month is sharing more details about the terrifying experience.
Luca Parmitano wrote in his online blog, posted on Tuesday, that he felt all alone as water filled his helmet outside the International Space Station.
Parmitano says he couldn't see far and couldn't hear anyone. He frantically tried to think of a plan to get back to the safety of the air lock. That's when he remembered his safety cable. He used the cable recoil mechanism, and its 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms) of force, to “pull” him back to the hatch.
He says it felt like an eternity.
The US space agency has suspended spacewalks while determining the cause. The Russians will stage their second spacewalk in under a week on Thursday. - Sapa-AP