One of the more dramatic yet unsatisfying deaths in space movies is the one in which an astronaut is performing an extravehicular activity (EVA) or space walk and becomes untethered from the ship. They drift away, knowing there's no possibility of rescue. The audience has to imagine what the rest of that astronaut's life would be like, and it's horrifying. It's never happened in real life, but the possibility is there. About 200 astronauts have performed EVAs, and a couple of times there have been close calls. In 1973, two Americans had a close call while working on the Skylab space station. And two cosmonauts doing an EVA outside the Salyut 6 space station in 1977 came close to disaster. <a href="https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2022/08/23/has_an_astronaut_ever_come_close_to_floating_off_into_space_848388.html">Read these stories of a nightmare almost coming true at Real Clear Science.&nbsp;</a>#astronaut #cosmonaut #EVA #closecall

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