Word: cabined
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...deaths of the astronauts brought to a head longstanding differences between advocates of pure-oxygen atmospheres for spacecraft and those who favor a two-gas system. The fire hazard inherent in a pure-oxygen system had discomforted space officials for years. In 1962, two crewmen in a space-cabin simulator at San Antonio were overcome by fumes from an instrument-panel fire but were rescued without serious injury. The same year, four men in an oxygen-filled test chamber in Philadelphia suffered second-degree burns when a short circuit in a lighting fixture caused a fire...
Unlike a pure-oxygen system, which requires a cabin pressure of only 5 lbs. per sq. in., a two-gas system would have to approximate the sea-level pressure on earth-14.7 lbs. per sq. in.-to ensure that enough oxygen reached the astronauts' lungs. If a small meteorite should puncture the skin of a ship containing a nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere and cause rapid decompression, the astronauts on board would develop a painful and perhaps fatal attack of the "bends"; nitrogen dissolved in their bodies would come out of solution, forming gas bubbles in tissues...
...that it would be less inflated and more flexible) and only then was able to open the outer hatch and step into space, still breathing pure oxygen. By contrast, U.S. astronauts, always breathing oxygen at reduced pressures, can step directly out of their cabin into space...
...system than because of the fire hazard of a pure-oxygen system. Designers spared no efforts to fireproof the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft. All electrical wiring was coated with noncombustible materials. Devices capable of sending out sparks were placed in sealed boxes. Space suits, seats, instruments and cabin walls were all designed to avoid the generation of static electricity...
...during the test indicated that at 6:31:03 p.m. Roger Chaffee first shouted a warning about the fire, that there were faint signs of movement, and that at 6:31:09 Ed White, too, reported the cockpit blaze. Other NASA control center instruments recorded the fact that the cabin pressure (held at a level of 16 lbs. per sq. in.) began to increase, and that three seconds after White's warning, Chaffee cried out again about the fire and there was more evidence of the men's moving about...