Space is a vacuum that does not do refunds. Humans remain, unfortunately, wet bags of organs who prefer air and steady pressure. Bones staying inside the body help too.
There are so many ways you can meet your final destination while in space. Here are nine very specific, very horrifying ways space can kill you that we pulled straight from NASA’s risk pages and reports.
1) Rapid depressurization
A cabin can lose pressure fast enough to drop a crew before anyone finishes a full thought. NASA’s history of Soyuz 11 describes a rapid pressure loss that led to the crew losing consciousness within minutes. They did not survive.
2) Fire in a sealed can
Fire behaves differently in microgravity, and spacecraft atmospheres can make things so much worse. After the Apollo 1 fire, NASA changed cabin atmosphere decisions and pushed major flammability and design fixes to reduce the risk of a fast-spreading onboard fire.
3) Too much carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide builds up when ventilation or scrubbing falls behind. NASA flags CO2 exposure as a risk because it can cause in-mission health effects and performance drops, which is a bad time to discover your brain runs better with fresh air.
4) Too little oxygen
Hypoxia is what happens when oxygen or pressure is too low for your body to use properly. NASA treats it as a serious operational risk because cognition and coordination can slide before anyone notices.
5) Radiation that waits you out
Earth has a magnetic field that keeps much of the radiation from your body. Space does not, and NASA has been clear about the cancer risk that comes with that.
6) Space junk at violent speeds
Micrometeoroids and orbital debris are not cute. NASA’s Inspector General describes MMOD as a top risk to crew safety on the ISS, and shielding can only do so much when something hits at orbital velocity.
7) Decompression sickness during a spacewalk
Going from a pressurized habitat into a lower-pressure spacesuit can cause decompression sickness. Spacewalks are among the highest-risk activities astronauts perform, which explains the strict oxygen prebreathe protocols.
8) A blood clot in zero gravity
Blood clots were not supposed to be part of the spaceflight equation; one showed up anyway in the internal jugular vein. NASA now screens astronauts for clot risk because guessing wrong here isn’t an option.
9) Reentry and landing can break you
Getting to space is violent. Coming home can be rough, too. NASA tracks injury risk from dynamic loads because high G-forces and awkward landings can hurt crewmembers, especially after time in microgravity.
Spaceflight works because every ugly scenario gets planned for in advance. That preparation is the only reason anyone leaves the ground.
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