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Scarier than Gravity: Real Life Close Calls in Space

2013-11-01 · list · Hank · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: Pop culture) · mode: Curiosity & trivia · tags: timely hook, civic or action cta

The day after Halloween, Hank, who saw the film Gravity, runs through real near-disasters in spaceflight (Gemini 8, Leonov's spacewalk, Soviet Soyuz landings, Apollo 12, Luca Parmitano's flooding helmet) as scarier than any ghost story.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Day after Halloween; Hank saw Gravity with Henry of MinutePhysics and Derek of Veritasium; its physics errors are on SciShow; real space disasters instead

  • ★★ Hank, who dislikes scary things, recently saw the film Gravity with Henry of MinutePhysics and Derek of Veritasium and found it terrifying. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says that after the film they discussed how Gravity violated the laws of physics a couple of times (a topic for SciShow), but it is still a very great movie. — 00:00:00 · SciShow

00:00:29 — Neil Armstrong's spinning Gemini 8 (1966); Alexei Leonov's swollen spacesuit and wolf-surrounded landing (1965)

  • ★★★ In 1966 Neil Armstrong's Gemini 8 had a maneuvering thruster stuck on and spun at more than one rotation per second; the crew was seconds from passing out before he regained control. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ In 1965 Alexei Leonov became the first person to go out in a spacesuit, but the suit inflated so much he could not fit back into the capsule until he vented it. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Suffering from the bends, Leonov's crew re-entered late, landed far off course in a freezing forest surrounded by wolves, and waited in the capsule for rescue. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Soviet near misses: Boris Volynov's nose-first reentry and broken teeth, Soyuz 18A's aborted launch and near-cliff landing, Soyuz 23 in a frozen lake

  • ★★ On a reentry with lone cosmonaut Boris Volynov, the service module failed to detach and the capsule went in nose first, its hatch burning, before righting itself. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Volynov's parachute and landing rockets failed, he landed hard enough to break his teeth, and walked several kilometers at minus 36 Fahrenheit to a peasant's house. — 00:01:27
  • ★ Hank says Soyuz 18A got that name because Russia only names successful missions, so the failed flight does not quite count. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ A separation failure turned Soyuz 18A's rocket toward the ground; Hank gives the crew's g-force as '021Gs', about three Gs from lethal, before the abort sequence fired. — 00:01:56
    • a number in question (doubtful): "021Gs" — check against the recording
  • ★★ The Soyuz 18A capsule landed on a snowy mountainside and rolled toward a 400-foot cliff, stopping about 20 feet away when its parachute snagged on vegetation. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Soyuz 23 crashed through the surface of a frozen lake and its cosmonauts waited nine hours at the bottom before rescue. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Apollo 12 struck by lightning twice; fires and depressurizations; Luca Parmitano's spacesuit fills his helmet with water

  • ★★ Besides the well-known Apollo 13, Apollo 12 almost ended in disaster when it was struck by lightning twice during launch. — 00:02:55
  • ★ Hank says almost everything imaginable has gone wrong in space, including fires, depressurized spacecraft and spacesuits, and a man who poked a hole in his hand and survived. — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ The most recent terrifying near miss: Luca Parmitano's spacesuit malfunctioned and filled his helmet with his drinking water in space. — 00:02:55

00:03:22 — Scarier than ghost stories; thanks for pumpkin entries, vote on favourites; sign-off; unrelated trailing clip

  • ★★ Hank says these real space disasters, not made up, are scarier than any ghost story told on Halloween. — 00:03:22
  • ★★ Hank thanks everyone who submitted nerdy pumpkins to the Nerdfighter pumpkin carving contest, whose prize is a book from his shelf inscribed by him. — 00:03:22 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Hank asks viewers to look at all submitted pumpkins and vote; in a week the most-voted entries will be tallied and get the prizes. — 00:03:22

In the description and comments

  • ★ In the description Hank says the Russians seem to have a knack for getting into terrible situations but somehow not dying. (playful) — video description

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

People: Alexei Leonov · Boris Volynov · Derek Muller · Henry Reich · Luca Parmitano · Neil Armstrong

Projects: SciShow

Works: Gravity (film)

Organizations: Soviet space program

Places: Russia

Events: Apollo 12 · Apollo 13 · Gemini 8 · Halloween (holiday) · Soyuz 18a · Soyuz 23

Replies to

  • answers · Perspective — “John, thanks for sharing this week”

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