FYI: How Would NASA Rescue An Astronaut Who Floated Away From The International Space Station?
International Space Station NASA It's never happened, and NASA feels confident that it never will. For one thing, astronauts generally don't float free. Outside the ISS, they're always attached to the spacecraft with a braided steel tether, which has a tensile strength of 1,100 pounds. If it's a two-person spacewalk, oftentimes the astronauts are also hooked to each other. Should the tethers somehow fail, however, astronauts have an awesome backup plan: jetpacks! Each one wears what's called a Safer, for "Simplified Aid for Extra-vehicular activity Rescue," a backpack with built-in nitrogen-jet small joystick to propel himself back to the station. Of course, Safer is useful only if the astronaut is conscious. What if an astronaut gets bonked on the head, becomes untethered, and can't operate the jetpack? "A rescue effort could and would be undertaken by the second spacewalker and/or other members of the spacestation crew," says Michael Curie, a spokesman for...