NASA scheduled a spacewalk Tuesday, but had to put it on hold after crewmembers found water leaking into the helmet of Italian astronaut, Luca Parmitano. As expected, Parmitano wasn’t too happy about sitting it out since he became the first Italian to spacewalk on July 9. According to the report, the leak was so terrible that Parmitano needed help from crewmembers to get back into the space station.

Luca Parmitano was scheduled to perform a 6 hour spacewalk, however, due to water escaping in the helmet that rendered him speechless and nearly unable to breathe, the whole thing was cut short during the first hour. Other astronauts believed the drinking bag was the cause for the leakage, but Parmitano claimed the water tasted funny, so it had to be from another source.

Previous astronaut suits had a block of ice inside along with water circulating to cool the suit and the person inside, though it is not certain if current suits use the same cooling method. If that is the case, then we might have just found the real culprit to the leakage problem.

We understand this was the fastest end to spacewalk ever since 2004, where two astronauts were recalled back into the space station after 14 minutes. As expected, they had spacesuit trouble, but nothing compared to what Parmitano had experienced.

He’s a lucky man, because not only would he have died, he would have also become the first astronaut to drown in outer space. We’re guessing that’s not a good way to go down in history, would likely become the secret laughing stock of the astronaut community.

[via CTV News]