Kind: captions
Language: en
250 miles above the surface of the
Earth,
astronauts Tom Jones and Robert Beamer
Kerbam prepare for an extra [music]
vehicular activity,
a spacew walk.
Just over 2 years into construction of
the International Space [music] Station,
the structure is far from complete.
The space shuttle Atlantis has brought
up a new component,
the laboratory module Destiny.
Tom and Beamer need to connect vital
life support systems [music] to enable
astronauts to live and work in the lab.
They are working in a lethally dangerous
environment.
And suddenly something goes wrong.
A coolant valve fails, spewing toxic
[music] ammonia crystals into the vacuum
of space.
Getting a lot of ice
all over the place.
>> Years of training mean Beamer remains
calm, but it's a serious problem.
>> Beam.
>> Yeah, I am going to need one.
We don't know exactly what the leak rate
was, but I knew we didn't have long.
>> Beamer needs to find the shut off valve
upstream and turn it off.
>> I did find very quickly that it was
going to be a lot harder than I thought.
>> The valve is stuck.
>> When I tried to close it, it didn't
close.
I tried again. It didn't close.
They said it was going to be about 25
pounds of force. I've spent a lot of
time in the gym. It was not 25 pounds of
force. It was much, much more.
I tried to close it again.
And finally, after four or five tries, I
got to close it.
Just pulled the bail.
>> Yes. And that stopped the leak. Very
good. Good idea.
Mission control breathes a sigh of
relief.
With [music] the leak stopped, the
astronauts can connect Destiny's cooling
lines to the station.
The ISS is safe, but now Beamer is
covered in [music] toxic ammonia.
and sooner or later he's got to come
back in the cabin and expose the outside
of the suit to his crew mates who are
not interested in dying horrible deaths.
>> I thought to myself, what are they going
to do with me? You know, now that I have
this toxin on the outside of the suit,
I knew that the procedure to go back
into the spacecraft was going to change.
I just didn't know how.
Tom wipes the toxic crystals off his
crew mate's spaceacuit
using a brush in their EVA kit. But
before he can re-enter the space
station,
Beamer must burn the last remaining
traces of ammonia off his suit
in the baking heat of the sun.
The amazing thing about the procedure to
help me decontaminate [music] the
outside of my space suit was that it
gave me the opportunity to just sit in
the sun and watch [music] the Earth go
by for 45 minutes,
which was awesome. And it was
incredible. [music] I loved it.
And you see the [music] Gobi Desert. You
see all the different parts of Asia. You
see the Himalayas to the south. You see
a little bit of cloud layer there.
And you just bask in it.