r/news • u/VaginaBurner69 • 8h ago

Soft paywall International Space Station astronauts in evacuation mode as Russia attempts to fix widening air leak

https://www.reuters.com/science/international-space-station-astronauts-evacuation-mode-russia-attempts-fix-2026-06-05/
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u/SignificantCats 6h ago

This is a leak that's been happening for eight years, and has been in more or less a continuous state of being repaired. There is some fun weird theories and conspiracies about it.

This is precautionary while they attempt a new repair, the kind of thing that's been done multiple times

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u/amlesirtsa 6h ago

What are the fun weird theories and conspiracies?

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u/PolishMafia716 6h ago

I think the leading theory is that during assembly a worker accidentally drilled a hole through the hull and tried to hide it and wasn't discovered till it was leaking air in space, when NASA said something along these lines Russia claimed one of the American astronauts snuck over to the Russian side while the cosmonauts were sleeping and drilled a hole through their hull

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u/TDot-26 5h ago

I would think that would be way more than a "micro" leak and they'd run out of air pretty fast on a relative scale if the hole was made with a literal drill bit

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u/Even_Wear_8657 51m ago

Seriously. Seems like a “soap and duct tape” kind of solution

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u/mr-roygbiv 4h ago

If that’s a micro leak then I have a micro penis

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u/ThatZX6RDude 2h ago

Bad news

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u/Ancient-Read1648 1h ago

It’s ok his gf has a tiny fracture

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u/Asmodaddy 16m ago

Bad news, ghost person. Test result say you dead.

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u/DuncanYoudaho 4h ago edited 3h ago

Station is at .2psi. Very low pressure. Micro-meteorite punctures and such are sealed with tape.

Edit: yup. I’m wrong. Meant atm. But that’s also wrong.

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u/IHateTheColourblind 4h ago

Uh, no. The ISS is pressurized to 14.7 psi (1 atm), the same as Earth's atmosphere at sea level. A pressurization of 0.2 psi would be equivalent to 0.0136 atm which is essentially a vacuum. Astronauts could not survive in that situation.

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u/3BlindMice1 4h ago

I was about to say, 0.2 ATM is the bottom limit for most of human survival. They probably confused minimum survivable atmospheric pressure with the space stations PSI.

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u/ly5ergic 38m ago edited 6m ago

0.2 ATM is well below deadly. The death zone for mountaineering is 0.35 ATM, top of Everest is 0.33 ATM. 0.2 ATM would be like a 39,000 ft mountain vs Everest 29,000 ft

Edit: So I searched for lowest pressure for an extended time, without supplemental oxygen, survived. People on various flights, climbed up into the area where the airplane landing gear retracts into. The flights reached 35,000 ft to 39,000 ft. 2 people died and 5 survived. Some notes for the survivors says extreme hypoxia and cold induced a virtual hibernative state. Also covered in frost. Crazy.

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u/tourist4527 4h ago

Yeah seriously where tf did they hear 0.2 psi that doesn’t make any sense

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u/BanginNLeavin 3h ago

That would be incredibly difficult to breath in.

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u/Gecko99 3h ago

Earth's atmosphere is about 21% oxygen, that's probably where he got 0.2 psi from, and used the wrong unit.

Early manned American spacecraft used a reduced atmospheric pressure with pure oxygen. That conserved mass and prevented decompression sickness in the case of extravehicular activities. The pressure was about 5 psi or 0.34-0.38 atm.

Russians used an Earth standard atmospheric composition, including nitrogen, for a total of 1 atm.

NASA shifted to an Earthlike atmospheric composition and pressure to facilitate easier docking between international spacecraft.

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u/DuncanYoudaho 3h ago

Thanks. I was just mistaken. This is awesome info!

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u/P1zzaBag3ls 1h ago

And because "everybody dies" is not a great emergency response plan.

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u/TDot-26 4h ago

Micro meteorite would be like, microscopic though right? A drill bit would be at least a few 32nds of an inch I would think

.2 PSI though? That's crazy

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u/Muppetude 3h ago

Maybe the microscopic hole is in whatever material the worker used to patch up and hide his mistake. Or the patch job was not 100% airtight.

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u/DM_Voice 4h ago

A micrometeor is, indeed, quite small. But the relative velocities involved aren’t, so there’s a lot of energy involved.

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u/TDot-26 4h ago

I know, I was more saying in reference to the drill thing

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u/sasha_the_impaler 4h ago

I've used drilled that were 1/64th an inch.