There's no two ways about it. Space is trying to kill you. Between the no breathable air
radiation and rocks hurling around everywhere, space is a human hazard.
Yet we continue to push boundaries and explore this perilous place.
And it’s miraculous that in more than 50 years of human spaceflight only three men
have died in space.
So the caveat here is that it all depends on how you define space.
If we want to get technical, space starts at the Kármán Line, an imaginary line 62
miles above the planet because we need some way to determine what’s space and what isn’t.
By that formal definition, most of the fatalities in spaceflight haven’t happened in space.
On January 28, 1986, a faulty seal in a booster rocket led the space shuttle Challenger to
explode 73 seconds after launch when it was just 9 miles above the planet.
Seven astronauts were killed, though the accident investigation suggests it was actually the
impact upon hitting the ocean that killed them, not the explosion.
On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during re-entry,
38 miles (200,700 feet/61,170 meters) above the ground.
Another seven astronauts were killed.
On April 24, 1967, the parachute on the Soyuz 1 flight failed to open and Vladimir Komarov
was killed on impact, so on the ground.
On the commercial side of things, pilot error led to the breakup of Virgin Galactic’s
SpaceShipTwo on October 31, 2014, during a test, killing one pilot.
It’s not clear where exactly he died but it was somewhere between 50,000 ft, where
the spacecraft broke apart, and the ground.
But either way, still below the Karman line.
However, three men have died in space, albeit during reentry, not in orbit on a mission.
The crew of Soyuz 11 were killed on June 30, 1971, above the Kármán line.
This happened when a valve opened at the top of the descent module, letting the pressurized
atmosphere escape.
The open valve exposed them to the vacuum of space, killing the crew in under a minute.
The spacecraft, meanwhile, executed a flawless automatic landing.
They were found unresponsive with blue patches on their faces and blood dripping from their
noses and ears but one was still warm to the touch.
But aside from those three cosmonauts, no one else has died in space in 40 years.
So how is that possible?
With really good technology and understanding of the hazards of space.
The basic necessities — food, water, and air — are either replenished by resupply
missions or recycled by the International Space Station’s onboard facilities.
The station and the spacecraft that fly to it are all built with adequate shielding to
keep crews safe from small impacts.
Lightweight shields called “multishock” can cushion the blow of impacts.
The ISS also orbits below the Van Allen Belt so it does have some natural radiation protection.
If something did happen, the ISS’ modularity offers a lot of protection.
Essential systems can be commanded from the ground so crews can take care of themselves.
There are even external locks and docking ports meaning that unmanned vehicles can dock
with the station or depart under Houston’s ground control.
And of course there are alarms and monitoring systems in place to warn astronauts of any
problems and flight controllers keeping an eye on everything on the ground.
Of course redundancies and backups make these systems that much safer.
Really, it’s during launch and landing that the astronauts are at the most at risk, and
there are systems in place for that, too.
Like the Apollo launches in the 1960s and 1970s, todays rockets like the Soyuz have
launch escape systems on board.
These emergency systems are basically small rockets on top of a spacecraft that can be
triggered by an automatic emergency signal or by a ground controller.
It fires, pulling the spacecraft away from, say, an exploding booster, giving it distance
and a safe place to land.
It’s actually only been used once; in 1983, an escape rocket pulled the crew of Soyuz
T-10-1 away from an explosion on the launchpad.
So yes, space is dangerous.
But scores of aeronautical engineers and missions planners all work together to ensure space
missions run without a hitch.
Thankfully they’re pretty good at not letting space kill us.
But as missions go further into the depths of space, the risks will likely increase and
engineers and planners will have their work cut out for them.
Speaking of close calls in space, how long did it take the crew of Apollo 13 to realize
they were definitely not landing on the Moon?
I’ve got the full story over on Vintage Space.
Who out there would go to space, even though it’s super dangerous?
Let us know in the comments, give this video a like, and be sure to subscribe so you never
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