NASA, Which Sends People To Space, Causes Panic After Bungling YouTube Stream

NASA inadvertently caused some panic when a live stream of the International Space Station accidentally played audio from a training simulation that involved astronauts dealing with decompression, which made viewers think that an emergency was playing out in real-time.

Astronauts are up on the ISS — floating around and what have you — in preparation for a scheduled spacewalk on Thursday morning that was to involve swabbing the outside of the space station in the name of science to see if it releases microbes.

Hey, not everything in space has to be super exciting…

But, some people watching NASA's live stream of the ISS heard audio that made them think there was a serious problem aboard the station.

You can hear a woman's voice say to "get commander back in his suit" and give instructions to handle what sounded like an astronaut dealing with decompression sickness.

Fortunately, everything aboard the space station was fine. NASA simply goofed up by broadcasting audio of a simulation on its YouTube channel.

NASA Put A Man On The Moon, But Goofed Up A YouTube Stream

Look, I don't want to be that guy, but NASA put a man (several men, actually) on the moon, and running a YouTube stream is causing problems. 

Kids who stream themselves playing Fortnite have gotten this all figured out. 

Believe me, I understand NASA spins a lot of plates, but the YouTube livestream should be the easiest one to keep spinning.

I mean, I have no plans to go to space at the moment — although I have been referred to as "quite the space cadet" on several occasions — but if I did, I'd be a little concerned about this YouTube snafu.

It'd be my first question about the mission — "Any problems with the live stream?" — and would serve as my backstage dish of M&Ms with the brown pieces picked out. Van Halen used to do that because they knew it was such a dumb request that if it was completed they could be sure that the safety measures to keep Diamond Dave from getting lit up by a pyro effect or Eddie from getting electrocuted by an ungrounded Marshall Stack.

If the YouTube livestream was firing on all cylinders I'd assume that the heatshields were up to snuff.

That might sound like dumb logic, but it's my logic.

Now, as for that spacewalk that was scheduled for Thursday morning — the one with the microbes — it was scrubbed because the astronauts were dealing with a "spacesuit discomfort issue."

Can you blame them? If my space suit didn't feel exactly right, no way am I risking my life to collect microbes.