A serious mistake on the part of NASA caused moments of panic and anguish among the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
During a live broadcast, a space emergency audio was accidentally broadcast, causing confusion and fear among the crew, who at that moment was completely resting.
The audio, part of routine training, simulated an astronaut suffering the effects of decompression sickness, a serious condition that can occur during spacewalks. The pleas for help and cries of pain reproduced in the broadcast caused an immediate reaction from the space laboratory crew, who woke up disoriented believing it was a real emergency.
The situation was aggravated due to the lack of security measures in NASA’s live broadcast, which allowed the simulated signal to be mixed with the real transmission, without any clear indication to differentiate one from the other.
After several minutes of uncertainty and tension, NASA identified the error and stopped the transmission, revealing that it was a training drill on Earth. The Agency apologized for having mistakenly spread the message through a routine broadcast.
The drill transmitted in error was designed to reproduce an emergency health crisis, giving the impression that one of the crew of the Space Station had suffered decompression sickness. This syndrome, commonly associated with scuba diving, can occur when the environment around a person loses pressure very quickly, causing small bubbles of depressurized gas to form in the blood, which can cause blockages in the bloodstream and be fatal.
NASA’s mistake not only caused panic among the astronauts, but also caused great concern among the scientific community and the general public, as the broadcast was later uploaded to YouTube.
The incident highlighted the importance of having strict protocols and proper safety measures in place for live broadcasts, especially when it comes to events involving personnel on high-risk space missions. NASA began an internal investigation to determine the causes of the error and take the necessary measures to prevent similar situations from being repeated in the future.
