View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

  1. Culture
10 November 2016updated 30 Jul 2021 5:58am

With my visor down against the night, I unhooked my safety tether

Not realising the cause of my near-blindness, I thought that I was simply beginning to die.

By Mike Massimino

Seventeen thousand five hundred miles per hour orbital velocity: at that speed, it takes the space shuttle only 90 minutes to do a complete orbit around the Earth. With nearly equal periods of darkness and sunlight, astronauts experience 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets in a 24-hour period. The brightness of the sun during the passes through daylight is starkly contrasted by the darkness of the passes through night.

While spacewalking, this contrast is so extreme that we have a golden visor on our helmet to shade our eyes from the sunlight, so we can see what we are doing. We typically use it in a rhythm of 45 minutes of visor down (to block the light), followed by 45 minutes of visor up, during the night passes.

My first spacewalk on my second flight to the Hubble Space Telescope was different. For most of it, I didn’t notice the light blinding my vision – I was working inside the telescope, or the shuttle was blocking the sun, so I didn’t put my visor down. But it took over seven hours to do the spacewalk, and while I was finishing up the sun was blinding me. I put my visor down. When we entered darkness, I forgot to put it back up.

My next task was unhooking my safety tether. If I did this incorrectly, I’d float off into space for ever – but I could barely see a thing.

Not realising the cause of my near-blindness, I thought that I was simply beginning to die. I wasn’t scared. It was almost peaceful. I’d had a good life, a successful spacewalk was nearly over, and if this was the way I was going to go, so be it. I hoped that I would live long enough to get back inside the spaceship, and I did. As soon as I entered the airlock, I saw my reflection. Ah, I thought, that’s why you couldn’t see. You aren’t dying, you just forgot to bring your visor back up.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

I was embarrassed. Once we were back inside the shuttle, my buddy Drew Feustel said, “Hey, I noticed you had your visor down at the end during that last night pass.”

“What?!” I said. “Are you kidding me? You noticed that and never said anything? I couldn’t see a thing, I thought I was passing out or dying! Why didn’t you say anything?”

Drew replied, “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

I said: “Didn’t want to embarrass me? Wouldn’t it have been worse if I messed up my safety tether transfer and floated away into space?”

“Good point,” Drew said. “My bad.”

I told him that he should have pointed out my error, rather than keeping me at risk of making a bigger mistake because I could barely see. A life lesson for us all: it’s better to speak up and risk embarrassment, rather than to regret for ever that you didn’t warn your buddy.

Mike Massimino is a former Nasa astronaut. He has appeared in the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory”

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

This article appears in the 01 Nov 2016 issue of the New Statesman, The closing of the liberal mind

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU