• Question: What type of dangers are there sending a human into space and what is the percentage rate that they will die in space due to those dangers? Thankyou

    Asked by Winnie60701 to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 12 Oct 2015.
    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 12 Oct 2015:

      Simon: Hi Winnie60701! Sending Humans into space can be dangerous. The main dangers are related to either launching to or returning from space due to the very aggressive environment from the rocket itself or passing through the atmosphere at high speeds. This is where most fatalities have taken place.

      Since Humans have first started to travel into space 18 astronauts have died and approximately 600 astronauts have flown in space so you see the probability of dying in space would appear to be quite high: around 3% (1 in 30).

      However space travel is getting more and more routine and (I believe) safer and safer. Like all modes of transport, the more you travel the more you learn about how to be safe. So paradoxically the best way to make space safer is to fly more astronauts into space!

      With the dawn of space tourism I think we are going to see that happen so that the probability will start to go down significantly and approach something more like flying in a plane which is about 1 in 5million!

      On the ISS there have been no fatalities to date after 17years of constant occupation but we are not complacent. The ground and crew regularly train 4 main emergency events (EMER):

      – Fire
      – Loss of Atmosphere
      – Toxic Spill
      – Ammonia Leak

      In most cases these events have so far never happened. We do occasionally get unexplained Smoke Detector alarms or strange smells that may be related to something burning but have had no confirmed fires. We do though have a few false alarms which keep us alert and enable us to exercise our emergency responses!

    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 15 Oct 2015:

      Hi Winnie60701,

      Another thing to consider is that as we start looking at travelling further distances in space the medical provisions are going to have to change too. Currently if an astronaut was to have a medical problem on the ISS they can be quickly evacuated back to Earth for treatment. However, as we go further this is no longer going to be possible. Therefore we are going to have to be able to treat more things in space rather than looking to evacuate.

      This is another reason why medical facilities in Antarctica are of interest to space agencies. During the winter here (9 months) there is no possibility of evacuation as the temperatures are too low for planes to fly to us (typically planes can’t fly at temperautres less than -50C and here at Concordia we are regularly at -80C in the winter). Therefore we have to manage medical problems here rather than evacuate (so we have 2 medical doctors, a hospital and operating theater for a crew of just 13!). To help us we also have really good telemedicine facilities (which means we can talk to specialist doctors and show them patients and their problems, including operations real time by video calls).

      Future spaceflight missions will therefore be likely use some of what we have learn’t here in Antarctica to plan their medical provisions!

Comments

  • Photo: COLFlight

    COLFlight commented on :

    Sergio:
    Hi Winnie,
    I read your question yesterday evening and I thought about it tonight while in bed. So I would like to add something from my side to what Simon wrote.

    It’s true that there are risks in going to the ISS, but on the other hand while you are up there you also avoid many other risks that we have everyday in our life on Earth!

    I give you some examples of things that cause casualties here on Earth and that are not affecting the astronauts:
    – Car accidents. Astronauts on the ISS don’t drive the car for 6 months, so they don’t have this risk
    – Domestic accidents, like electrical shocks. These risks are also present on the ISS, but they are much more controlled. So we are 100% sure that the Astronauts will never have this risk
    – Medical problems. The astronauts are kept under very strict control by doctors, so if any bad disease should develop, we would notice that immediately and we would be able to cure them
    – Accidents at work. Similar to the domestic accidents, on Earth there are often accidents at work. These don’t happen on the ISS because we have controls much more severe than on Earth.

    So if you sum everything up, being an Astronaut is probably one of the safest job you could do! 😉

  • Photo: Winnie60701

    Winnie60701 commented on :

    Thank you , I very much appreciate you taking your time for answering my question 🙂