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This chat between ex-Mythbuster Adam Savage and ex-astronaut Mike Massimino mentions the danger of getting water inside your helmet in freefall. I idly mused about a (probably stupid) idea: that if you could get a long enough hose/straw inside the helmet to the right places, primarily around your nose and mouth, you could sacrifice a little air to exhaust the water to space.

How to get water inside a space suit? mentions that only the Apollo suits seem to have supported external food or drink though a "food/drink port", apparently as a contingency against loss of cabin pressure. As far as I know, even with the relatively long Artemis flights looming we haven't restored that contingency capability for any suits, EVA or IVA.

Are there any documents that indicate whether external food/drink for space suits has been considered again since the Apollo space suits?

Erin Anne
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    It's worth noting that a drink bag isn't the only source of water in a NASA EMU. The astronaut wears a liquid cooled garment as a base layer. After Luca Parmitano's famously harrowing 2013 EVA where his eyes, nose, and ears were covered with water, his drink bag was determined not to be the source of the leak. – Doresoom Jan 27 '24 at 04:22
  • @Doresoom sure, and I don't mean to imply that a drink bag was the issue. I was thinking only about "hey, if you could stick something into the helmet maybe you could get water out...hey, there's an established reason and method for sticking things into helmets already" – Erin Anne Jan 27 '24 at 06:29
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    I don't think the Apollo design used any bags. The water was from a hose and the food was like compressed cylinders of ?yummy? stuff. Not to be pedantic, ok to be pedantic, but the linked answer does not say that Apollo supported the use of any bags. – Organic Marble Jan 27 '24 at 13:33
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    I hope the cylinders were not Space Sticks… Sure, I loved them as a kid, but not because of their taste. – Jon Custer Jan 27 '24 at 21:00
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    @OrganicMarble you are right and I have edited to try to be correct – Erin Anne Jan 28 '24 at 03:23
  • The Apollo suits for 15 and after (with the long-duration backpack so they were in there for 8-9 hours) had a food stick inside, but it was velcroed in before locking the helmet. I don't think they had a way to put new food in the suit after sealing it. They had a resealable port for getting more water that I think nobody ever actually used, and in theory it could have shot soup or some such thing but IIRC the only thing anyone ever ate inside the suit in Apollo was the "fruit bar". – Darth Pseudonym Jan 29 '24 at 19:16

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