Space is a vast and terrifying place, and humans have only ventured into a very small portion of it. Most crewed space missions have gone smoothly, but every once in a while, an astronaut will come across a situation where they are in grave danger. They’ve been trapped outside the safety of the space station, forced to make detailed calculations as their vessel spins out of control, and survived disastrous re-entries. It’s like the movie Gravity, but in real life.
A new show on the Science Channel, Secret Space Escapes premieres tonight at 10 pm, and features astronauts and cosmonauts detailing their brushes with disaster in their own words.
In the first episode, noted Canadian astronaut (and musician) Chris Hadfield tells the story of his first spacewalk when he was blinded by a substance getting into his eye. He lived to tell the tale (which he’s told before at TED talks), but it’s an amazing story to see as well as hear. Watch part of tonight’s episode in the clip above.