

ISS emergency spacewalk to repair ammonia leak [live video] - 6ren
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#live

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alabut
First the trailer for Gravity comes out and then this happens. It's almost as
if real life decided space needed a marketing stunt.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufsrgE0BYf0>

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kristopher
And now fixed! Only 48 hours after the leak was detected.

Interesting that they hook-up the "broken" module back into the system for
diagnostics.

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rogerbinns
The protocols for space walks are also very similar to deep sea divers. The
suits have an internal air pressure lower than the space station (for many
good reasons). In order to avoid getting symptoms similar to the bends, they
have to spend several hours pre-breathing pure oxygen etc. This means they
can't just put on a suit and go outside in an emergency - it takes planning
and time.

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MekaiGS
Could you explain why this is the case?

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rogerbinns
This section explains pressures:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_suit#Operating_pressure>

This 4 minute 1987 NASA video explains suit history:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4WK6IUQ7QU>

This page explains the protocol and over two hours of pre-breathe:
<http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/eva/outside.html>

This section (4th paragraph) explains what happens when a space suit is
pressurized: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_9A#Objectives>

Quote: After pumping up his pressure suit to three and one half pounds of
pressure per square inch, "the suit took on a life of its own and became so
stiff that it didn't want to bend at all." He struggled to move inside his
stiff suit.

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MekaiGS
Very informative, thanks!

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arjie
The ustream link seems to be the one that works on Android. The HTML 5 one
just tells me that I should be using an iOS device.

Does anyone know what technology is being used in the suit cameras and why it
is so different from the ISS cameras? The former seem to have far greater
interference.

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somesay
I don't know the details and also I don't know to which ISS cameras you
compare, but those suit cameras have to be robust, flexible, likely low power
consuming and bring a good reception. The interference with this analog
technology isn't that bad. A human viewer can filter those troubles in real
time. Compared to a digital video stream, we would have had green blocks,
frozen images, delays etc. at least when using the same bandwidth. There could
be improvements for sure, but maybe it isn't worth the effort.

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ISL
Thank you for the post. Been transfixed for more than an hour.

