Spacesuits - personal spaceship

GCNRevenger · 2005-09-02 21:40:24

You wouldn't have much of a magnetic field that way I wouldn't think... a regular brush with the bristles stuck into a big bar magnet might work better.

No, soil pyrolysis is not nessesarrily cheaper using microwaves... consider where you are getting your energy from? A nuclear power plant? A solar/thermal concentrator? Either one of these methods cannot convert but a fraction of the heat energy into electricity, and of that electricity not all of it can be converted to microwaves. So, although microwave heating would work, and be more efficent per-watt of electricity then thermal, it would not be more efficent per watt of heat energy most likly. The heat output largely determines how big/expensive your reactor or solar mirror is.

JonClarke · 2005-09-03 00:19:56

I think a hand held rotating electric brush for first stage cleaning on the moon would be a good idea. You would have to make sure the bristles were firm enough to remove material but not sharp enough to damage the suit. A small appliance like that would be useful on mars for any recalcitrant clods the air jets did not shift.

Jon

Austin Stanley · 2005-09-03 04:26:26

I wonder if anyone had ever considered this solution:

Sorry for all the images, but I think it illustrations help out. Basicly the suit is docked to the outside hull of the ship/rover/hab/whatever possibly with another airlock bettwen it and the outside. The astronaut climbs into the suit through a small hatch. His lifesupport pack is then secured behind him and the suit is sealed. The docking door is then likewise sealed and then the astronaut is free to move out.

This sort of solution has its advantages.
#1. It makes dust control much easier as the suit never enters into the main hab/rover, and the it's exposure to the inside atmosphere is extreamly limited.
#2. It might be possible to do away with the outer airlock saving large amounts of space and mass.
#3. The suit and the hab/rover share basicly the same atmosphere, with little to no need to vent the atmosphere in the airlock, making the process much more efficent.
#4. Climbing into a single unit, pre assembled unit is probably faster than dressing in a conventional suit.
#5. The suit would have fewer pressure seals (one) lowering the chance that one of these might fail (also fewer seals to check).

Some of the downsides I see are.
#1. Difficult to impossible to suit up by oneself.
#2. One-peice suit may be heavier and bulkier than other designs.
#3. Mechanical pressure suit is probably impossible via this method.
#4. Sharing atmosphere with the hab/rover could be difficult if a diffrent mix is prefered for EVA's (ie. pure O2 as opposed to a O2/NO2 mix).

GCNRevenger · 2005-09-03 08:07:45

A few thoughts...

Unless the suit is either kept under pressure when not being worn, then you can't use any kind of suit other then full-body hard suits (letting them "crumple" would be hard on them). Right now, those aren't very good mobility wise, and I bet that they aren't good enough. I imagine they would be pretty bulky and heavy too... NASA uses a semi-hard design today, which is still a decendant of the soft Apollo design.

You are also going to need an airlock anyway, so that you can bring the suit inside for maintenance, and bring other items (samples, equipment, etc) in too. And why would you waste valuble gasses by venting them outside during the lock-out procedure? That might be fine for short duration missions, but you ought to use a vacuum pump and recover those gasses. Nitrogen is much too important to dump overboard an airlock-full at a time at HAB pressure.

BWhite · 2005-09-03 11:21:46

Austin Stanley writes:

I wonder if anyone had ever considered this solution:

Thanks for the images, Austin Stanley. This seems pretty close to possible suggestions I have read for using the NASA Mark III. Dwayne Day very briefly mentions the suit-lock idea in last week's Space Review article, for example.

Comments:

1. Somewhere I recently read about the need for foot restraints so the suit legs don't follow the astronaut up and s/he exits from the suit. Lock the boots in place before exiting the suit. Edit to add: Keeping the suit pressurized also seems like a good idea as GCNRevenger writes.

2. Seems to me that a second airlock is essential for many reasons, including repair to the suit itself.

3. Install a bar inside the hab/vessel above the suit-lock. Enter and exit the suit using similiar motions as when doing a chin-up or pull-out. Arms extended overhead and grasping the bar while feet slide in or out from the legs of the suit.

4. If the suit-lock "doggie door" were hinged, a recess could perhaps contain elements of the personal life support (PLSS). Close the door and the PLSS is mechanically engaged to the suit. Solo operation might be feasible.

Plug -n- play modular O2 tanks, personal water and waste pouches would seem useful.

5. A larger Mark III or Orlan suit would allow arms and hands access to the face and behind the back, perhaps after some Houdini like movements. Use inflatable bladders to cinch down around the arms when this wasn't necessary. Water packets and even high calorie "performance style' candy bars could be stored in the helmet.

Low waste food (heh!) should be eaten for a few days before EVA activities. A niche market perhaps, for selling ration bars that are engineered to produce as little human waste as human metabolism allows, for mountain climbers and long distance kayakers, etc. . .

6. Perhaps wear a rudimentary spandex undergarment along with ear plugs (with wi-fi enabled speakers) under a snoopy cap along with airtight goggles and a back-up face mask to cover the nose and mouth to better increase survival odds in the event of a suit mishap.

= = =

One size/type should not fit all. Perhaps a robust, heavy Mark III derivative is used for certain EVA applications and a lightweight MCP for others.

Austin Stanley · 2005-09-03 21:15:50

I should first apologise, I didn't read this forum as throughly as I should have, or I would have seen that some of my suggestions had already been listed. I still think the images help provide a vivid visual example of what might be involved (even if the astronaut is a wolf).

While I agree with the utility of a secondary, more traditional airlock. The ability to do away with it could save vital space and mass. While this would be nice for the Hab, it could prove even more vital for a Rover. The rover is very constrained in tems of the mass and space it has avaliable, much more so than the Hab is. The is also limited in the amount of power it can provide to it's equipment. High powered vacume pumps and air-filters might not be possible. Some designs forgo an airlock entirely and simply depressurise the entire Rover, venting the air into space. Indeed space may be so tight on the Rover that the simple ability to store the suite outside may be of some benifit.

---

I like the doggy door concept, but it strikes me as less than foolproof, and an airlock has to be foolproof. It might be acceptable on the Rover where loss of cabin pressure isn't necessarily a total disaster.

JonClarke · 2005-09-04 15:40:04

Sorry, I missed this earlier

The Martian wind removes some of the dust from flat, smooth solar pannels, which may also have some electrostatic properties due to the type of cells used, and we have no idea what size or type of dust may be preferentially adhered.

Actually it removes most of it - some gusts have returned the Spirit to better than 90% nominal power. This is air at 7 mB. Higher pressure air would be even more effective. Especially if combined with a rotating brush, which could be spun by the air jet.

Fabric? Apollo? The Apollo suits were not made of any sort of fabric, their exteriors were smooth, slick, Teflon to avoid abraison damage to the underlying membrane. The dust stuck to it most likly because of the static electric effects, just like a plastic comb will build up a charge in dry air.

The outer layer of the Apoll EVA suit was teflon coated beta cloth.

A disposable outter layer is a non-starter, since you obviously can't bring that many. Nor would putting on or taking off an outter layer be simple enough, and during removal too much dust could be carried over to the underlying suit, which defeats the purpose.

How much do you imagine they would weigh? My off the shelf overals weigh 600 grams. Let's say they have a lifetime on the Moon or Mars of 10 EVAs. A 14 day lunar mission would need one per person - that's 2.4 kg for a 4 person crew, assuming an EVA every other day. A 6 month rotation on the moon might see a two person EVA every other day, 180 EVAs in all, 18 outer suits. That 11 kg. On Mars, assuming similar EVA rate, on a 600 day mission you would need 60 overals, all of 60 kg. If they last longer or a way effective of cleaning devised then they will probably last a lot longer.

As for carrying the dust over onto the inner suit, you miss the point. The outer layer does not have to stop all the dust, only most of it. If each step removes only 75% of the dust by the time you and dusted off the outer layer, removed the over layer, and vacuumed inside the airlock, that leaves less than 0.4% of the original amount of dust on the suit brought inside to be dealt with by the filters and routine housekeeping.

Jon

Grypd · 2005-09-07 14:37:29

Sanlab, Japan the HAL 5 full body suit

This is amazing from other sources it can enable a person to carry 40kg more than they where able to before. That is a large increase in capacity especially where this was this increases the comfortable carrying capacity with the same amount.

JonClarke · 2005-09-07 15:45:44

Interesting, although the page did not translate well for me. Some questions:

What's its power source? What is its endurance? How fast can it move? How long does it take to don and doff? How flexible is it for complicated work requiring dexterity? What is its mass? What's is failure modes? How does a person extract themselves from it in the event of a failure?

Jon

SpaceNut · 2005-09-09 07:24:47

Sort of wondering an adaptation of this idea would work well for a spacesuit wash.
Eco-aware shower recycles water

A shower which recycles water promises to save householders money and energy.
The idea is the brainchild of Peter Brewin, a design student at the UK's Royal College of Art.
The system re-circulates and cleans used water, with the potential to save families around £170 each year.
If Londoners were to jump in the eco-friendly shower, it would reduce the capital's water usage by 85 billion litres each year - the equivalent of 85,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
The shower works on similar principles to a Dyson vacuum cleaner, using filters and hydro cyclones, installed behind the shower unit, to clean the recycled water and reheat it to the desired temperature.

JonClarke · 2005-09-09 17:26:57

That sort of grey water recycling would be essential on Mars, I suspect, even if water is plentiful. in some locations.

Jon

SpaceNut · 2005-09-14 19:31:39

Then there is the issue of how much radiation shielding for the suit to flexability is required. To know what is the right amount you test and sense what is recieved and limit what is the exposure as best you can.
OSU discovers new technique for NASA

Researchers in the physics department at Oklahoma State University have been analyzing the advantages of a radiation-detecting technique called Optically Stimulated Luminescence for space dosimetry since 2001. The OSL technique is one of several methods used to detect the amount of radiation astronauts are exposed to during space flight.

JonClarke · 2005-09-16 22:58:42

The radiation protection afforded by suits, while not to be scorned or ignored, is surely modest. I doubt whether the difference between the level of protection offered by MCP vs a GP suit is significantly different. After all, both MCP and GP suits consist of several layers, an the greater flexibility of a MCP suit is not primarily because it is thinner, but because it is not rigidised by internal pressure. A hard suit might offer marginally more protection than an either but has severe disadvantages in terms of gas leakages and flexibility. It is also mass limited for planetary surface applications, no more than 120 kg for the moon (including PLSS but not the wearer) and 60 kg on Mars.

Jon

SpaceNut · 2005-11-29 10:20:16

Search turned up that at least once we have made mention to Suitsat in this thread, so here is the latest:
"SuitSat" Launch From International Space Station Delayed and will not be deployed from the International Space Station until sometime in January or February.

Grypd · 2005-12-21 09:58:32

More on Japan developing its own space suits

AP Japan may develop its own spacesuits

There is a dearth on detail but a suit able to function for a week and to have robotic elements and still only way 20kg is a very hard task to do. Though for Japans future in space it is a definite precursor technology to have if manned flights are considered.

Commodore · 2005-12-21 11:23:58

An upgraded space suit would involve heat resistance and anti-radiation technology, bulletproof materials and robot mechanisms, Kyodo said.

Wonder if it will look like something out of Gundam Wing.

cIclops · 2006-01-14 05:44:17

Gary Harris makes a strong point about spacesuits being designed to fit into spaceships as an afterthought and not, as he insists, the spaceship sized and designed around the spacesuit requirements. He goes on to point out that the CEV is making this same mistake by not considering the spacesuit in its design. If you like to hear a real engineer talking in detail, check out the Space show audio here

--
spacewiki

GCNRevenger · 2006-01-14 09:22:54

Actually, NASA and Lockheed were considering a more "gumdrop" shaped capsule for the CEV primarily to accomodate space suit doning/doffing on the Lunar surface. However, now that NASA has settled on using a seperate Lunar lander this isn't an issue for the CEV capsule.

I bet that you could get into a full sized suit in the 5.5m Apollo-style CEV NASA currently wants since its in zero-G, if you really needed to.

Stormrage · 2006-01-14 21:26:05

Does anyone know how the NASA glove challenge is going on? When was the deadline?

SpaceNut · 2006-02-01 07:23:20

Spacesuit goes overboard for unusual mission Worn-out suit recycled into miniature satellite sending out a radio beacon
scheduled for February 3.

A simple battery-powered radio transmitter inside the suit will use an antenna mounted to the suit's helmet to send signals down to Earth for up to several days. The data will include temperature readings, a slow-scan TV image and several specially coded messages for ham radio listeners to figure out.
SuitSat's transmitting career will be short, however: Its batteries are expected to run out after several days. Within a few weeks, SuitSat itself will burn up in the atmosphere.
How to tune in to SuitSat
For decades, American and Russian space activities have included projects on behalf of amateur radio operators all around the world. SuitSat — whose "call sign" will be "RS0RS" — will broadcast on a frequency deliberately chosen to be easily accessible.
"All you need is an antenna — the bigger the better — and a radio receiver that you can tune to 145.990 MHz FM," said project engineer Frank Bauer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "A police band scanner or a hand-talkie ham radio would work just fine."

batoka · 2006-02-02 21:27:46

There's some updated info on the MIT Bio-suit site:

http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit/index.html

- batoka

SpaceNut · 2006-05-01 21:15:01

Now back to or regularly schedueled space suits for the next big steps on a planet other than Earth.
Prototype Mars space suit to be tested in Badlands this weekend.

Students from the University of North Dakota, North Dakota State, Dickinson State, the state College of Science in Wahpeton and Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt designed the experimental suit with a $100,000 NASA grant.

cIclops · 2006-05-02 09:10:16

Now back to or regularly schedueled space suits for the next big steps on a planet other than Earth.
Prototype Mars space suit to be tested in Badlands this weekend.

Dang no picture

BTW Pablo de Leon, the project manager, gave an interview with the Space Show recently

SpaceNut · 2006-05-02 12:40:32

I knew this rang a bell North Dakota Space Grant Consortium Awarded; $100,000 Grant to Design Mars Planetary Suit

This image from here
More here...
NDSGC Space Suit Project

cIclops · 2006-05-02 13:09:04

Very cool ... that must be Earth blue

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#76 2005-09-02 21:40:24

Re: Spacesuits - personal spaceship

#77 2005-09-03 00:19:56

Re: Spacesuits - personal spaceship

#78 2005-09-03 04:26:26

Re: Spacesuits - personal spaceship

#79 2005-09-03 08:07:45

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#80 2005-09-03 11:21:46

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#81 2005-09-03 21:15:50

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#82 2005-09-04 15:40:04

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#83 2005-09-07 14:37:29

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#84 2005-09-07 15:45:44

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#85 2005-09-09 07:24:47

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#86 2005-09-09 17:26:57

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#87 2005-09-14 19:31:39

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#88 2005-09-16 22:58:42

Re: Spacesuits - personal spaceship

#89 2005-11-29 10:20:16

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#90 2005-12-21 09:58:32

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#91 2005-12-21 11:23:58

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#92 2006-01-14 05:44:17

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#93 2006-01-14 09:22:54

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#94 2006-01-14 21:26:05

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#95 2006-02-01 07:23:20

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#96 2006-02-02 21:27:46

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#97 2006-05-01 21:15:01

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#98 2006-05-02 09:10:16

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#99 2006-05-02 12:40:32

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#100 2006-05-02 13:09:04

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