The Artemis II spacesuits are colored bright orange as a basic safety measure intended to make the astronauts highly visible if they need to be rescued in an emergency \u2014 a scenario that has arisen before.<\/p>\n
The bright color is known as \u201cinternational orange,\u201d and has been worn by astronauts during all space launches and re-entries since the shuttle flew in 1981. <\/p>\n
The Artemis II crew, specialist Jeremy Hansen, pilot Victor Glover, specialist Christina Koch and cmdr. Reid Wiseman, wearing their bright orange spacesuits before their Wednesday launch.
NASA \/ SWNS<\/p>\n
Those are the only times during a spaceflight when astronauts<\/a> would be bailing out with any hope of being rescued on Earth \u2014 and the orange color is designed to be highly visible to search crews flying overhead, especially if astronauts are left flailing in the ocean after a bailout.<\/p>\n The Artemis suits also have a series of bright blue cross straps intended to give rescuers easy and visible points to grab onto in the event of an emergency.<\/p>\n Such situations are unlikely, but not unheard of. <\/p>\n The United States\u2019 second manned spaceflight ever \u2014 1961\u2019s flight of the Liberty Bell 7 rocket during Project Mercury \u2014 nearly ended in disaster when the capsule\u2019s hatch blew open after splashdown, and astronaut Gus Grissom was left flailing in the water as his capsule sank.<\/p>\n Astronaut Gus Grissom being plucked from the water after he nearly drowned bailing out of his Mercury capsule in 1961. Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n NASA astronauts began wearing orange spacesuits for launch and re-entry during the shuttle missions in 1981. Bettmann Archive<\/p>\n Grissom nearly drowned as he waited to be rescued from the water by a helicopter.<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t wearing an orange suit at the time \u2014 he had on a silver pressure suit of the kind test pilots flying high-altitude planes like the X-15 wore, and which later spacesuits<\/a> were derived from \u2014 but orange suits were rolled out for Air Force pilots a decade later, and then adopted by NASA for the shuttle missions about 10 years after that.<\/p>\n Water rescues are the most likely situation astronauts face \u2014 as all flights launch by the coast and return with ocean splashdowns \u2014 but crews are typically equipped to deal with survival and rescue situations in any tropical or desert environment, as missions typically return along the Earth\u2019s equator.<\/p>\n