What if the scene from Gravity was real? In fact, it could be very real. And here's how a cosmonaut floated away from the International Space Station and spun out of control, orbiting Earth for seven months before plunging into the atmosphere and burning and disintegrating. Thankfully, there was no human inside that suit.

It's the macabre launch of the Suitsat, which happened on February 3, 2006:



It was the flight of the SuitSat, according to former NASA intern Sam Wilkinson:

The concept behind SuitSat-1 is quite simple, put some simple electronics (radio communications system, telemetry) into a Russian Orlan spacesuit, then throw it out of the airlock.

According to Frank Bauer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "SuitSat is a Russian brainstorm, some of our Russian partners in the ISS program … had an idea: Maybe we can turn old spacesuits into useful satellites." Aside from broadcasting voice messages from students around the world, and some telemetry data, SuitSat-1 also looked really eerie.

Real life 'Gravity' scene more terrifying than the movie.