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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 20, 2005
"Suited for Mars: An Advanced Spacesuits Symposium."
Imagine you're 5 kilometers from the habitat module on Mars and your spacesuit has just sprung a leak which will kill you in a few minutes. You really need a repair kit fast. Fortunately you have one and your partner on the EVA applies a fabric cuff made with contractile polymers that with a flip of a switch quickly seals the leak.
Currently we use have no spacesuit built for traversing rough terrain on planetary surfaces which is light enough, can be use for weeks and is field serviceable. The only spacesuits designed, built and used for surface exploration on another planetary body have been the 12 Apollo A7L's and A7LB's used on the Moon's surface six times for just a few hours each. They were truly works of great genius but after only a few hours of use they showed signs of wear. The Moon has very abrasive dust and the bearings which allowed free wrist movement began to show signs of failure as dust got into the works.
To address spacesuits designed issues the Mars Society will launch the first annual Advanced Spacesuits Symposium. With the advances in relevant technologies, such as smart fabrics, electroactive polymers and the demands of the president's new vision for space exploration comes a time to look again at the spacesuit. To protect a human on the surface of a planet a spacesuit must be as complicated as a manned spacecraft making it the most critical piece of human to machine interface hardware possible. Any future surface spacesuit design needs to successfully operate hundreds of hours in dusty environments. This places demands on future spacesuits, which will far exceed the Moon Suits capabilities.
"Suited for Mars: An Advanced Spacesuits Symposium" will take place Friday the 12th of August 1 PM to 5 PM at the 8th International Mars Society convention that will be held at the University of Colorado, Boulder, August 11-14, 2005.
Aerospace professionals from throughout the industry who have worked on or are simply interested in advanced spacesuit concepts are invited to attend this symposium where we plan to gather all the major players in the field.
Deadlines: 31 May 05 (abstract) / 12 August 05 (full paper)Abstracts should be sent via email to msabstract@aol.com
The Mars Society was founded in 1998 and is a nonprofit organization that promotes the goal of human exploration of the Red Planet. Currently the Mars Society operates two research facilities. Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS) located on Canada's Devon Island in the Arctic Circle and the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) located in the desert southwest of the United States. The Mars Society has chapters and membership worldwide.
For more information about the Mars Society, or to register for the conference, visit
http://www.marssociety.org/]www.marssociety.org/
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NASA is looking for Spacesuit input:
PRESSURE SPACE SUITS TO PROTECT CREWS FROM HOSTILE ENVIRONMENTS THROUGHOUT ALL MISSION PHASES TO SUPPORT THE VISION FOR SPACE EXPLORATION (VSE)
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Description
This notice is issued by the NASA/JSC to post a Request for information (RFI) via the internet and to solicit responses from knowledgeable parties. This document is for information and planning purposes and to allow industry and academia the opportunity to verify reasonableness and feasibility of contemplated concepts.
Pressure suits will be necessary to protect the crews from hostile environments throughout all mission phases of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). The following pressure suit capabilities will be required:
1) Crew protection and survivability during launch, entry and abort scenarios, including spacecraft depressurization,
2) Zero-gravity extravehicular activity (EVA) apability for in-space activities such as contingency EVA (including crew transfer between vehicles), assembly, maintenance or repair, and
3) Surface EVA capability for planetary exploration.
The Government is currently conducting a trade study to determine the quantity and type of pressure suits that may be required to meet the requirements of the VSE. Parties are asked to provide information detailing the technical feasibility, challenges of, and potential evolutionary pathway for meeting all of the VSE requirements with a single suit approach. Respondents are asked to give consideration to technical requirements (such as vehicle interfaces, mobility, comfort and environmental conditions), commonality, logistics, maintenance and sparing, operational impacts and life cycle costs. Respondents are also asked to provide information on associated technologies that could make a single suit concept feasible.
More at:
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Interesting it appears to be looking for a form of hardsuit with the possibility of a means to increase strength and even movement capacity by mechanical means. (powersuits)
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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Sounds like the suits need to be a suit within a suit type concept. One to give the wearer a sealed champer from the outer atmosphere; the other outer suit to keep the rest of the elements and conditions that it is used in fully at bay.
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Non of the Hardsuit folks I invited have replied.
But, Paul Webb the originator of the Skin Suit or Mechanical Counter pressure suit is coming to the Spacesuit Symposium!
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