People over on Reddit are discussing an old urban legend that NASA astronauts are issued with cyanide capsules – or other means intended to bring about death – in case they should find themselves in a situation where all hope of a return to Earth was lost.
“Probably a weird question but maybe someone has some insights? A Friend and I were wondering if Astronauts carry anything like cyanide capsules or something in case that there is an emergency where they are facing inevitable death,” Reddit user ClinkzZ90 said in their question. “For example when there are serious problems with life support systems (oxygen, water and so on) or in scenarios like a nuclear war with no hope to get back to earth.”
The short answer to the question is no: NASA does not issue suicide capsules. However, the first cosmonaut to conduct a spacewalk, Alexei Leonov, stated that he was issued with such a pill prior to his excursion.
Let’s start with NASA. The US space agency has never given astronauts suicide pills in case missions go wrong. Jim Lovell – who commanded the Apollo 13 mission – explained that in space, they aren’t really necessary.
“People often say, ‘did you take a suicide pill?’ or something like that. You didn’t [need] those. All you had to do was crank open the little valve to the hatch there…open up the little vent valve…” he explained, per Smithsonian’s Air & Space Magazine, referring to the Apollo 13 mission.
“Never would’ve thought about it [on Apollo 13] until all hope was lost. And then our idea was, if all hope was lost, if we went by the Earth—say we missed the Earth, and we were on an orbit about the sun, if we had exceeded the escape velocity….My idea was to hold off, you know, as long as we had options, as long as we could stand it, send back data….We probably would have been farther out than anybody. And then, you know, then we would decide, you know, what to do….Maybe we would have all committed suicide by opening up the vent valve. And that would have been the end of the deal.”
The rumor that NASA astronauts carry suicide pills may have come from Carl Sagan’s novel Contact or its film adaptation, in which the main character is issued with such a pill.
However, there is at least one spacefarer who claims to have been given a pill, in case their mission went wrong. This was Alexei Leonov – who, on March 18, 1965, conducted the first-ever spacewalk, attached to his ship only by a tether 5.35 meters (17.6 feet) in length.
Though the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) was ultimately a success, in that he conducted the spacewalk and returned safely, Leonov did not have what you’d call a great time out there.
“Leonov’s Berkut suit ballooned, making bending difficult. Because of this, Leonov was unable to reach the shutter switch on his thigh for his chest-mounted camera. He could not take pictures of Voskhod 2, nor was he able to recover the camera mounted on Volga which recorded his EVA for posterity,” David S. F. Portree and Robert C. Treviño explain in the book Walking to Olympus: An EVA Chronology.
During the walk, making matters worse, his sweat began to slosh around his suit, with the cosmonaut stating he was “up to his knees” in sweat. After a 12-minute EVA, he returned to the spacecraft, but the danger was not yet over.
“Recent accounts say that he violated procedure by entering the airlock head first, then got stuck sideways when he turned to close the outer hatch. This forced him to flirt with dysbarism (the ‘bends’) by lowering his suit pressure so he could bend enough to free himself. Leonov recently revealed that he had a suicide pill he could have swallowed if he had been unable to ingress Voskhod 2 and Belyayev had been forced to leave him in orbit.”
No other cosmonauts have spoken about being issued with such a pill. As outlined above, if a mission were to overshoot or otherwise become stranded, there are very easy ways to die in space.
If you or someone you know is struggling, help and support are available in the US via the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline which can be contacted by dialing 988. In the UK and Ireland, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. International helplines can be found at SuicideStop.com.
