No, this isn’t a shot from the film “Gravity” (but it could be)

Planet Earth is blue, and there's nothing I can do... — Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do…

I could say “how have I never heard of this!?” but the truth is I wasn’t blogging about space in February 2006 when this image was taken. Still, it’s no less incredible to watch! But if you’re not already familiar with this, it may not be exactly what you think…

It might appear to be a lone astronaut drifting in orbit, akin to Bruce McCandless’ historic untethered flight 320 feet from Challenger in 1984 (except lacking any way to return to safety) but this suit is thankfully vacant — it’s was part of the SuitSat-1 experiment in which an unused Russian Orlan space suit was released from the ISS by Expedition 12 crew members on Feb. 3, 2006.

Besides being stuffed with old clothes, the suit was outfitted with three batteries, internal sensors and a radio transmitter, which faintly transmitted previously- recorded voices of school children to amateur radio operators worldwide before it burned up on re-entry several weeks later.

Yes, I said transmitted voices of children. [shudder]

Check out a video of the SuitSat release below:

Even though I know there’s nobody in there it’s still really eerie to watch a person-shaped suit drift motionless out into space. It’s the stuff of sci-fi nightmares… let’s hope we never see this happen with an occupied one! (At least not in reality — keep it on the big screen.)

Image: NASA

8 Comments

Bill Hayes says:

September 17, 2013 at 12:18 pm

Hey! how are you so certain the suit was empty? Anyone can do a voice over – jusy kidding.

Yopu might like to read this:

http://matteringsofmind.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/615/ watch the nice little film at the end.

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J. P. Major says:

September 19, 2013 at 12:09 am

Well I’m really hoping it was empty.

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~ wolfrayetstar says:

September 17, 2013 at 5:30 pm

Creepy, indeed!

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Michael Fernandez says:

September 17, 2013 at 9:22 pm

Excellent, I hadn’t blogged space til this year either(though 30+ of my articles are missing due to a bac-up when moving back to here from a private WP sitehost issue sigh). Never head about this experiment, great article I’ve always wondered how an accident would’ve looked in the McCandless scenario and this places quite a vivid image in ones mind.

Great article, as an amateur astronomer not having heard of such a unique experiment certainly had me hooked!

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