NASA astronaut’s distress message broadcast by mistake

NASA has confirmed that audio widely shared on social media depicting astronauts in distress was a simulation released in error on its YouTube channel.

In the clip, intended to be used for training purposes, a voice said an astronaut on the International Space Station (ISS) had a “slime” chance of survival.

The release of the clip on Wednesday evening sparked speculation online about a possible space emergency – but NASA said all members of the ISS were safe.

“This audio was inadvertently diverted from an ongoing simulation in which crew members and ground teams are training for various scenarios in space and is not related to a real emergency,” the statement said. we read on the ISS X page.

The private company SpaceX also posted on social media that there was no emergency aboard the ISS.

The incident, which occurred at 11:28 p.m. BST, led some people to believe that a real astronaut was suffering from decompression sickness in space.

This was made all the more credible because, unlike the fake sounds that usually appear first from spurious sources, this was broadcast on an official NASA channel.

In audio shared on social media, a person asks the ISS crew to help an astronaut put on his spacesuit, check his pulse and provide him with oxygen.

Although NASA confirmed that the audio was shared in error, it did not independently verify that the recordings shared online were the same as those broadcast.

Decompression sickness, also known as “bends,” is a problem commonly associated with scuba diving because bubbles form inside the body due to a change in external pressure.

Astronauts follow protocols to remove nitrogen from the body to prevent this from happening in space.

According to NASA, crew members aboard the ISS were asleep at the time the audio was released, in preparation for a spacewalk on Thursday at 1:00 p.m. BST.

He says it will continue as originally planned.