At this point, with Musk being very close to an incoming administration, it would not surprise me if they refuse to stick their neck out if it was something capsule related. Not saying that’s the case here, but it’s certainly a concern moving forward.
Just to clarify—and I'm not denying her right to choose to do that—the person quoted in the article as citing "medical privacy" is one of the astronauts who was hospitalized.
From being involved with high altitude spy planes and stealth planes during the Cold war through to thinking about the many satellites that are put into space that relates to national security and even the clandestine space plane, we have no idea what it's for...
There is simply no precedent to be upset about a lack of transparency from NASA. Some of that is national security. Some of that is to protect IP. Some of it is just because of the way governments work.
Factor in that actually it may relate to a private company's operational issue (SpaceX) there's even less reason for transparency.
I don't think we will ever know
The essential elements of a social contract:
- I want it to be true real bad
- Other people are forced to comply with it
- I dictate the terms unilaterally
I've sometimes gotten a whiff of a toxic fume, and my instant reaction is to hold my breath and leave the area. Not inhale a few breaths.
I'm sure the astronauts are fit enough they could hold their breath long enough to get the helmet on. After all, I expect they probably have a lot of training in getting the helmet on fast. There are many emergencies that would require this, such as rapid decompression, fire, smoke, etc.
I don't know if the astronauts do this or not, but if I was reentering, I'd put the helmet on anyway. It's only for a few minutes.
So no, you do not get to generalize here.
Science tells us there is no value in making up possiblities, but that we must start from observation.
- "Normally, once medical personnel complete their preliminary assessment, crews are flown to shore on a helicopter, then board a NASA airplane for the flight back to Houston. Instead, the Crew-8 astronauts were taken to the hospital Friday morning."
edit to add: These spacecraft all use very toxic fuels, and this one has had issues with fuel leaks before [0]. I'm not sure how or if those could affect the crew. Maybe if there was contamination on an exterior surface, they could have been exposed on landing? IIRC it is or used to be standard procedure to take air samples before opening crewed spacecraft, for this reason.
edited again to add: I found it! It Apollo-Soyuz in 1975—the crew were poisoned by fuel when they exited the craft on splashdown, and were hospitalized for weeks with chemical pneumonia [1].
[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/06/nasa-delays-cargo-dr... ("NASA and SpaceX stand down on Dragon launch to study hydrazine issue")
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo–Soyuz#Re-entry_and_afte...
- "The only serious problem was during reentry and splashdown of the Apollo craft, during which the crew were accidentally exposed to toxic monomethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide fumes, caused by unignited reaction control system (RCS) hypergolic propellants venting from the spacecraft and reentering a cabin air intake. The RCS was inadvertently left on during descent, and the toxic fumes were sucked into the spacecraft as it drew in outside air. Brand briefly lost consciousness, while Stafford retrieved emergency oxygen masks, put one on Brand, and gave one to Slayton. The three astronauts were hospitalized for two weeks in Honolulu, Hawaii.[22] Brand took responsibility for the mishap; because of high noise levels in the cabin during reentry, he believed he was unable to hear Stafford call off one item of the reentry checklist, the closure of two switches which would have automatically shut off the RCS and begun drogue parachute deployment. These procedures were manually performed later than usual, allowing the ingestion of the propellant fumes through the ventilation system.[23]"