re: International Space Station astronauts given evacuation order after air leak discovered.

They need to give Mr. Ro-bear the contract. He likes to work with good people, him. He likes to start his work early, him.

The module in question (Zvezda) was one of the first components of the space station and the one addition that allowed humans to stay in space.


The pressure vessel was built in 1985.

A lot of the life support systems are a pain in the arse (it reclaims water and generates air for whole station) and constantly go down for repairs

NASA is so terrified about it they basically split the station in two: to go from the American segment to it you have to cross two airlocks, one of which must be closed at all times.

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They eventually isolated and repaired the leak. It was coming from a small hole in a Soyuz craft that had recently docked.

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A small leak in space is a huge deal

That Soviets had a leak once before. Spacecraft landed normally, but the crew remained silent. When they got to the craft, they found three dead cosmonauts. A smaill valve popping open had killed them.

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The three cosmonauts are Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev, who died on June 29, 1971, during the return of the Soyuz 11 mission. They perished from asphyxiation when a pressure-equalization valve unexpectedly jolted open during module separation, causing the entire cabin to depressurize into the vacuum of space.

The catastrophic depressurization occurred roughly 100 miles (160 km) above Earth. Because the capsule was too small, the crew was not wearing bulky spacesuits, leaving them completely unprotected against the sudden vacuum.

Investigators determined from their physical positions and health trackers that the crew had desperately tried to unstrap themselves and manually close the open valve before passing out. They all tragically perished within 110 seconds.

Kerim Kerimov, chair of the State Commission, recalled: "Outwardly, there was no damage whatsoever. They knocked on the side, but there was no response from within. On opening the hatch, they found all three men in their couches, motionless, with dark-blue patches on their faces and trails of blood from their noses and ears. They removed them from the descent module. Dobrovolsky was still warm. The doctors gave artificial respiration. Based on their reports, the cause of death was suffocation"

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Following the ceremony in Red Square, the urns containing their ashes were interred with full military honors in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. This is a highly revered location at the heart of Moscow, where the remains of Yuri Gagarin and other prominent Soviet figures are also buried. They were each posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal

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Investigators determined from their physical positions and health trackers that the crew had desperately tried to unstrap themselves and manually close the open valve before passing out.

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Well, the Soviets put the valve underneath the seat…so nobody was getting to it.