Interview with astronaut Chris Hadfield: Houston ... — Transcript

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1. 0:04so here's a common
2. 0:06question can you cry in space on my
3. 0:08second space shuttle flight I uh my main
4. 0:12role was to be the lead space walker the
5. 0:14purpose was to go outside and build the
6. 0:16huge robot arm that would then build the
7. 0:18space station gigantic multi-jointed
8. 0:21very complex very capable
9. 0:25arm I was outside working I'd been
10. 0:27outside for several hours my very first
11. 0:29Space Walk and I was lead space walker
12. 0:32and my drink bag which just has water in
13. 0:34it has a little Camelback sort of bite
14. 0:36valve started leaking water and I saw
15. 0:39some little drops of water floating
16. 0:41loose like like little ladybugs around
17. 0:43the inside of my my helmet one of them I
18. 0:45don't know what happened but all of a
19. 0:46sudden my left eye snaap shut in pain uh
20. 0:50kind of blinded and it felt like a a bug
21. 0:53had just got in your eye or you just put
22. 0:54some real nasty liquid little hot sauce
23. 0:56in your eye or something so your my eye
24. 0:58just stung like crazy crazy and you
25. 1:02can't rub your eye or it's inside a
26. 1:04fishbowl of a helmet you can't even
27. 1:06reach anything with your eyeball so I
28. 1:08just had to kind of take it and um and
29. 1:11it tear up of course but uh without
30. 1:14gravity that tier uh Supply just builds
31. 1:18and builds and you end up with a bigger
32. 1:19and bigger ball of tear on your eye
33. 1:22which in this case was
34. 1:24contaminated the real question was what
35. 1:26do you do I'm not on a spacewalk I'm
36. 1:29working and I figured well I a one eye
37. 1:31working maybe that's why we have two
38. 1:33eyes I'll keep on working you know and I
39. 1:35won't tell anybody maybe it'll clear
40. 1:36itself but unfortunately the tear just
41. 1:38got so big eventually that it crossed
42. 1:40the bridge of my nose and went into my
43. 1:42other eye and now suddenly uh both eyes
44. 1:45were contaminated while I was outside of
45. 1:47my first spacewalk I was
46. 1:49blind uh which wasn't what I expected to
47. 1:52happen uh so then I I kind of had to
48. 1:56fess up call down to Houston you know I
49. 1:58don't know if I said Houston I have a
50. 1:59problem or not but something like that
51. 2:01and uh and they thought maybe it was the
52. 2:06lithium hydroxide in my backpack that
53. 2:08removes the carbon dioxide from our
54. 2:10exhaled air and lithium hydroxide is
55. 2:12nasty stuff if you start breathing it so
56. 2:14they wanted me to immediately open the
57. 2:15purge valve on the side of my helmet and
58. 2:17let the uh let the contaminated air
59. 2:20start to flush
60. 2:22outside so it's weird to be holding onto
61. 2:25a spaceship blind and what Houston tells
62. 2:26you to do is now start leaking oxygen to
63. 2:28the universe but that's what I did open
64. 2:30my valve listen
65. 2:31to as my oxygen is hissing away and
66. 2:36you'd think it might be terrifying
67. 2:38really or at least fear inducing but it
68. 2:41was actually kind of peaceful I was I
69. 2:42was just comfortable I was a nice
70. 2:44temperature I wasn't going anywhere I
71. 2:46was holding on to something I could
72. 2:47still talk I could still hear and uh all
73. 2:52I couldn't do was
74. 2:54see and after we got back in that was
75. 2:57like an 8 hour space walk which is a
76. 2:59long long time for a spacewalk you're so
77. 3:01tired but after we got back in and
78. 3:03looked at it the thought was probably
79. 3:05that it was just the antifog on the
80. 3:07visor had picked up one of these floated
81. 3:10or had been picked up by one of the
82. 3:11floating drops of water and so it was
83. 3:13really just in effect squirting dish
84. 3:15soap straight into your eye is is what
85. 3:17it felt like which I really wouldn't
86. 3:18recommend especially if you can't rub
87. 3:20your eye or cry uh and so we changed the
88. 3:24after that I think we use Johnson no
89. 3:25more tiers now for our uh for our
90. 3:28antifog
91. 3:29uh but it was it was an interesting day
92. 3:33in that we had an important task to do
93. 3:36something that would normally terrify
94. 3:38you or me uh happened but because of all
95. 3:41the training and preparation and
96. 3:43visualization and thought and teamwork
97. 3:45and everything in advance uh all it did
98. 3:48was slow us down for a little while and
99. 3:50we completed everything on the spacewalk
100. 3:51and it turned out to be a successful day