THIS is the horrific moment an astronaut’s helmet filled with water as he floated outside of the international space station, almost killing him.
Luca Parmitano found himself contemplating death by drowning or risking his head exploding by removing the helmet.
Parmitano was set to conduct a spacewalk that was supposed to last six hours when disaster struck.
He said that after about half an hour, he felt some cold water on the back of his head.
The excursion was cancelled and Parmitano, along with another astronaut, headed back to the space station.
Parmitano’s helmet was filling up with water at this point, covering his eyes and nose and making it hard to breathe.
He said he had to feel his way back to the airlock by memory.
His calm approach to the potentially lethal situation may have saved his life, according to NASA officials.
The harrowing spacewalk, which happened in July 2013, was investigated thoroughly by NASA scientists who were baffled as to how water entered his helmet in space.
A similar leak had apparently happened on week earlier, when Parmitano and his colleague assumed it was caused by a leaky drink bag in his suit.
Experts at the agency later found that a clogged filter had caused the “close call”, which could have ended far worse than it did.
“About half an hour into the EVA (spacewalk), 45 minutes maybe, Chris and I were ahead on our tasks so we were starting our third task and I felt some water on the back of my head,” Parmitano said after the incident.
“I realised that it was cold water, it was not a normal feeling, so I told ground (control).
“I started going back to the airlock and the water kept trickling.
“It completely covered my eyes and my nose. It was really hard to see. I couldn’t hear anything. It was really hard to communicate.
“I went back using just memory, basically going back to the airlock until I found it.”
Chilling footage shows the other astronauts trying to work out where the water is coming from and later helping him remove his helmet.
He said he could feel the water level rising causing a “really awful sensation” before he was able to get back to the station.
“By now, the upper part of the helmet is full of water and I can’t even be sure that the next time I breathe I will fill my lungs with air and not liquid,” he revealed in a terrifying recollection.
Once inside, he was able to remove the helmet and breath again.
The brave astronaut later stated: “We are explorers, not colonisers.
“The skills of our engineers and the technology surrounding us make things appear simple when they are not, and perhaps we forget this sometimes. Better not to forget.”
While the near-death experience happened ten years ago, NASA was recently forced to put all spacewalks on hold while it resolved an alarming issue with spacesuits onboard the International Space Station.
The agency said in a chilling recollection of Parmitano’s horror that helmets worn by astronauts had begun filling with water on multiple occasions in 2022.
It put personnel in potentially life-threatening scenarios as they cling to the station’s exterior 250 miles above Earth.