So what? What the hell would having a helmet on have done? Or gloves? Keep them alive an extra ten seconds?
If that.
The implication that they could have somehow been saved is just ridiculous.
Sheesh. Even that round ball thing that the president climbed into just before the plane crash in ‘Escape From New York’ wouldn’t have saved those astronauts.
You asked — “So what? What the hell would having a helmet on have done? Or gloves? Keep them alive an extra ten seconds?”
In retrospect, we can see that it was catastrophic (as to what happened). However, it could very well have not been catastrophic if it were a different set of circumstances. And so, one must prepare for the possibility of something not being catastrophic but also requiring the survival of the crew in order to do things that can save a ship in a non-catastrophic situation, before it turns into something that can’t be saved.
So, having the knowledge of what needs to be improved can give people more time to do necessary thing to save a ship in the future, on other missions. That’s important to analyze and to know.
That’s what this kind of thing is useful for (in looking at this kind of catastrophic event) — to take care of the future.
Sudden depressurization would have been mercifully blackout delivery prior to the tearing and ripping traumas. The worst NASA deaths were in cabin fires.