Mary Robinette Kowal@ 🏡Varmennettu tili

What's the pre-breathe? Because the suits have a significantly lower pressure than the station, the astronauts breathe pure-oxygen to avoid getting the "bends" on a spacewalk.

Those SF scenes where someone puts on an EMU and immediately goes out into space? That's a future where they've solved the problems with pressure.

Another neat thing about the Orlan is that the entire back opens so you enter it and just slide your limbs in the right spots. In theory, a cosmonaut can get into an Orlan without help. The trade-off is that it fits a narrower range of people.

Please note the mirrors on their wrists! This is so that they can see the indicators and tools on the front of their suits. It's one of the things that everyone does.

They just mentioned hearing a "cracking noise" as they were installing something. Interesting thing...even in a vacuum, you can hear things that happen outside your suit if you and the object making sound are touching.

I forgot to define terms. Orlan - the Russian spacesuit for EVAs and it means "Eagle." EMU - Extra-vehicular Mobility Unit, is the NASA spacesuit for EVAs. Extra-Vehicular Activity requires a different suit than launch and re-entry because of different work conditions.

Ha! The shade they are throwing right now about the wire tie is hillarious. "The person who did that horrible thing to you was sitting next to me." "Really? Would you care to share his name?" "Let's not talk about that."

A wire tie is like the wire twist tie on your bread bag. It's used to attach something to the station where we might use a zip-tie on Earth. My understanding is that one reason they don't use zip-ties is that the only way to remove them is with a blade.