On July 16, 2013, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy were on what was supposed to be a six-hour space walk outside the ISS. About an hour into the mission, Parmitano, who had become Italy’s first astronaut to walk in space only a week before, reported that he was started to feel a lot of water on the back of his head.
At first, he thought it might have been coming from his drinking bag, so he gulped that down, but unfortunately, the water continued to flow into his helmet. Parmitano realized it was cold, which wasn’t normal, and informed Mission Control. They quickly aborted the extra-vehicular activity (EVA) and ordered him to return to the airlock.
As the Italian astronaut began to make his way back, he could feel the water cover the cupped sponges in his earphones to the point he couldn’t hear anything. Then the water “completely covered” his eyes and stuck to the visor, making it nearly impossible to see. According to Parmitano, the scariest part was when the upper part of the helmet became full of water, and he wasn’t sure if the next breath he took would be air or liquid.
He made his way back to the airlock by following his safety cable and just going off memory, and his fellow crew members helped get him safe, secure, and dry (via Space). An estimated two to three pints of water had accumulated inside Parmitano’s helmet (via the Los Angeles Times). After the incident, he said it felt like he was a “goldfish inside a fish bowl.”
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