--- title: Luca Parmitano: The Case of the Drowning Astronaut description: How astronaut Luca Parmitano survived a harrowing ordeal when his spacesuit's helmet started filling with water. canonical: https://time.com/4923923/luca-parmitano-countdown-podcast/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-31T21:31:16.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:14:58.207Z article:section: Science og:title: Episode 7 of 'Countdown:' The Strange Case of the Drowning Astronaut og:description: The most unlikely crisis ever faced in space og:url: https://time.com/4923923/luca-parmitano-countdown-podcast/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf7ddd85f7b6c6350/6988dc238fd2ee8f44358ad4/gettyimages-187658035.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3500 og:image:height: 1969 og:image:alt: Astronaut Luca Parmitano Returns To Earth Onboard Soyuz TMA-09M og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Episode 7 of 'Countdown:' The Strange Case of the Drowning Astronaut twitter:description: The most unlikely crisis ever faced in space twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf7ddd85f7b6c6350/6988dc238fd2ee8f44358ad4/gettyimages-187658035.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Episode 7 of the Podcast 'Countdown:' The Strange Case of the Drowning Astronaut > Sponsored content. 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It reaches 40,000 subscribers with a 34.2% open rate and a 2.1% click rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Aug 31, 2017 9:31 PM UTC  In this handout photo provided by the European Space Agency (ESA), ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano poses for photographs after returning to earth in the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft in the Kazakh Steppe region on Novemeber 11, 2013 in Kazakhstan. In this handout photo provided by the European Space Agency (ESA), ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano poses for photographs after returning to earth in the Soyuz TMA-09M spacecraft in the Kazakh Steppe region on Novemeber 11, 2013 in Kazakhstan. Handout—2013 ESA  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Aug 31, 2017 9:31 PM UTC There are a lot of things to like about walking in space—except for the fact that you can’t scratch your nose. A spacesuit, after all, is really more of a spacevehicle, with its own sealed environmental system that must _remain_ sealed if it’s going to keep you alive. You could no more open your helmet to relieve an itch or clear a fogged visor than you could open the window of your spacecraft itself. That’s generally a tolerable thing—until one day in July of 2013 when it became a terrifying thing. It was on that day that Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano stepped outside the International Space Station for what was supposed to be an uneventful six-hour spacewalk. He soon learned a deadly lesson: while a spacesuit is good at automatically purging any number of unwanted things, such as carbon dioxide and excess heat, it is terrible at dumping liquid water. Of course, spacesuits are not supposed to fill with water in the first place. But what if one did — what if the impossible thing did happen? The choice then would be between death by drowning in the fish bowl of your helmet or death by instant suffocation in the vacuum outside. Surviving to breathe Earthly air once again is not among the options. That, at least, is how it seemed to Parmitano on that summer day when his spacesuit went murderously awry. That’s how it seemed too to his fellow spacewalker Chris Cassidy, who watched in horror, helpless to assist him, and to the joint mission controls in Moscow and Houston, as Parmitano fought to survive as no astronaut or cosmonaut ever had before. 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