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Comment by daveslash | Hacker News Reader

The idea of not being able to scratch my nose for six days is horrifying.

I remember hearing a story about some fluid getting in the eye of an astronaut working on the exterior of the ISS, and them not being able to wipe it away due to the helmet, so just continuing while in pain / discomfort.

Perhaps spacesuits could do with some kind of manipulable swab within the helmet to deal with situations like this.

Chris Hadfield [0] seek to ~ 11m30

[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/chris_hadfield_what_i_learned_from...

It’s worse one astronaut almost drowned when they had a leak in their cooling suit because the water in the “absent” of gravity just hangs out there.

https://www.space.com/24835-spacesuit-water-leak-nasa-invest...

There was also a case of the anti fogging material used in the glass getting into ones eyes leaving the astronaut essentially blind during a space walk.

I don’t think people realize just how dangerous those walks are, any equipment failure can pose as monumental risk and difficulty.

They usually stick rough Velcro patches around the inside of the helmet for this, some high altitude pilots do the same.

I had no idea. Thank you for enlightening me. Additionally, as user/gnode on this thread also pointed out, something could get in your eye. I'd hate to get an eyelash in my eye and not be able to get to it. Maybe I'm just super picky about being able to touch my face.

Or you can get anti fogging agent in your eye and go blind. https://youtu.be/Zo62S0ulqhA

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