Lets brainstorm on suit design - We will need suits after all

colonist · 2002-04-06 23:23:41

Here are a few thoughts that I have had on suit design for mars.

1) a hard cermet clamshell for the torso (to maintain an oval cross-section).

2) All life suport, internal power and other functions placed in a hard pack mounted o the back of the clamshell.

3) Power and O2 recharge conections placed in the chest to allow for mid-eva recharging.

4) boot and glove connnections designed to operate on a lift + 1/4 turn basis to release.

5) A seperate pressure envelope (constructed of ruberised cloth) is worn inside a balistic nylon shell. The shell is fited with cinching bands at major joints to facilitate movement.

6) build all electronic components of the suit and helmet to interface with a "Palm III" or similar older model palm-top computer. Computer should be worn on the forearm connected to the inteface cable.

Michael Bloxham · 2002-04-07 16:21:59

My question is whether a pressurized space suit would be needed at all. I think NASA needs to study shrink-wrap type suits. Such a suit would simply keep the body from expanding into space with shrink-wrap. Marshall T. Savage covers shrink-wrap type space suits in his book, The Millennial Project. A shrink-wrap suit would also allow more flexibility. Comparable to wearing a wet suit. Also, there are no joints in a shrink-wrap type suit. Joints have been a major problem for designing a Mars suit, because martian dust tends to get in and wear the joint out. It may seem surprising but such a suit may even have holes for the hands. Tests have been done where patients hands were exposed to complete vacuums. Apparently, no damage had occured, and the patients didn't feel any ill effects. There was a very controversal scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where one of the characters was exposed to space without his helmet on. While humans might not get away with this amount of exposure, as the fluid behind the eye would have likely pushed the eyes out, I beleive humans can expose their ams and legs to complete vacuums. For how long, I'm not sure. Does anyone have any more information on the vacuum exposure tests?

Shaun Barrett · 2002-04-08 00:44:36

Interesting topic .... thanks colonist! And hi again, Michael!
That bit about the astronaut in 2001: A Space Odyssey being exposed to space for about 20 seconds, and surviving, is intriguing. I wonder what level of discomfort would be experienced as those seconds ticked away?
Sir Arthur C. Clarke has discussed elsewhere in his prolific writings how future colonists and professional astronauts may become quite blase about hard vacuum: Imagine a delivery vehicle on the moon. The driver has to stop at several buildings on his rounds, and regulations demand a "hard dock" at each building in order to enter. But positioning the vehicle in the right spot, extending the transfer tunnel, waiting for a good seal, and then waiting for the tunnel to pressurise, is a pain in the ... lower extremity of the alimentary tract! Sir Arthur envisages people like this driver stepping out of his vehicle's airlock in shirtsleeves, bounding the few steps into the building's airlock, closing and pressurising, and all within 10 seconds! Much quicker; and no pressure suit required.
I don't know if this sort of thing would have any health implications or not; whether immediately or if you did it too many times in a certain time-frame, like too many 20 metre
scuba-dives in one day leading to decompression problems.
I suppose the "skin-suit" Michael speaks of would allow our delivery driver to get away with this sort of scenario with almost no risks at all. But as for using it routinely, especially without gloves, wouldn't the ambient temperature be a problem? The whole concept sounds perfect to me except for the thought of coping with one of those late afternoons on Mars when the temperature drops to -60 deg.C and a nice cool breeze develops! I think in KSR's Mars trilogy they had heating elements built into their "walkers", but he didn't go into the power source or insulation details required for these suits. Do we have the technology yet to produce a skin-suit with adequate heating and insulation, but which still retains all the light-weight flexibility we want? Surely if we had the know-how we would have done it by now(?).
By the way, Michael, how long were people's hands exposed to vacuum? Was there no pooling of blood in their hands? Does anyone out there know a good website to view the results of such research?

colonist · 2002-04-08 09:08:06

"shrink wrap" type suits would esentialy be disposeable and we are not certain that we can manufacture them on mars yet. By shrink wrap I am assuming that you mean the type of wrap that they put around phone books and mailed magazines. I have worked with this stuff and have seen that the seals are very weak, there is currently no way to finely control the shrinkage and in order to "fit" each suit we would have to stand in an oven for 30 to 45 seconds and have our partner go over the loose spots with a hair dryer. A loose fiting design with heavier fiber reinforced plastic for emergency use might not be a bad idea though.

An uninsulated "skin-suit" type garment would require the use of a snow-suit type insulated garment (possibly with heating elements for use with a "jeep" type rover)

Michael Bloxham · 2002-04-08 13:20:21

A shrink-wrap type suit isn't actually made of shink-wrap. It would probably be much like a wet suit, in fit and comfort. Although your post may have bought up a good point. Perhaps these wet-suits would be normal size at room temperature, but shrink as they are exposed to cold vacuum. This probably won't work on mars though, as the suit would expand come noon. But I don't think a shrinking suit would have to be used at all. I bet wearing a full body earth wet-suit would work just fine. Although a pressurized helmet would have to be worn.

Lil_vader · 2002-04-12 15:45:13

A wet suit would depressurize just as if you were wearing jeans. Somehow, I don't think that will work.

Michael Bloxham · 2002-04-12 19:05:41

Tight jeans might work...

Josh Cryer · 2002-04-14 00:23:59

I liked the solid, joint-based, European designs. They pivot at the joints, are comfortable, and increase manuveralbity considerably.

Remember, Mars wouldn't be much more different than the moon when you look at it from a pressure perspective...

Shaun Barrett · 2002-04-14 03:14:28

What about all that fine dust getting into the joints and gradually abrading the seals until they seize up, or worse ... start leaking air? A skin-suit would minimise that problem, wouldn't it? :0

Josh Cryer · 2002-04-14 05:37:22

The suit could always be encapsulated inside of a sheeth of some sort (the kind you see around joints, like, under your car for the steering). The reason you can't move around in a space suit is because it has to be pressurized greatly.

In fact, the jointed suit I described would be as skin tight as you could possibly get in a vaccume / near vaccume.

Here's one of NASAs space suit sites:
http://ails.arc.nasa.gov/browse/ames-heds.html

And here's a diving site with an old AX space suit (a design I like, myself- although I'm not sure it's practical for space work):
http://www.divingheritage.com/axkern.htm

CaptainRich · 2002-04-23 10:56:09

I think the one criteria that is overlooked is the amount of time that the suit will be used. On a Mars Direct mission you could be in a suit from 1500 - 3000 hours! The old Apollo designs didn't last much more than 10-20 hours and the astronauts were chaffed badly. Even a slight irritation will be a big problem with this level of suit usage.

John Creighton · 2002-04-26 10:01:18

Don't forget the speakers and microphones on the suit. Add some digital signal processing and people should be able to hear the sounds the want to hear and ignore the sounds they don't want to hear.

Adrian · 2002-04-26 11:30:05

On speakers and microphones: An idea I had was to have extremely fine locational positioning devices for all spacesuits, so that when you transmit voice from one EVA member to another, the receiver's headphones adjust the voice to replicate the directional qualities of the sound.

So: imagine you're talking to your fellow EVA member, who is behind and right to you. He transmits voice to you, and the sound is modulated so that your headphones mimic the sound that would have really been generated if you were speaking normally in a normal atmosphere.

What's the point of this? It allows more instant direction finding, e.g. you can respond quicker to a colleague saying 'Over here' if you automatically know he is to your left, instead of having to look around. Also, it makes things in general sound more natural.

noutram2 · 2002-04-29 04:16:56

Hi!

First post here. The point Marshal Savage makes in his book "The Millienium Project" (one of my favourites!) is that skin itself is pretty tough stuff. He does mention the tensile strength, etc. but I cannot recall. The flexible rubber suits he mentions where to add an extra layer of external inward pressure, maintain regular blood flow, etc. He also mentions wearing tungsten body plates to reduce radiation exposure -+extra thick 'codpiece'. A helmet is required.

There is so much stuff in his book, I sometimes wonder if he is a nut or genius...

As Nasa doesn't seem too interested in sending people to Mars, a Mars mission could be done with old technology and China is developing fast has anyone considered the first person on Mars will be Chinese (possibly with a little help from Russia)? After they get someone in space next year maybe, then the moon, then a 'fast track' Mars mission...

I like the sound idea -someone has probably got this cracked as part of a Virtual Reality project.

Regards, Nick Outram.

Bill White · 2002-05-14 19:54:54

Take a look at this site:

http://www.aspenaerogels.com/

This company makes a flexible aerogel fabric currently being tested in a parka being used in Antarctica.

If aerogels could be made on Mars, they might be a useful material.

lloyd · 2002-05-25 14:29:00

Has anyone thought about using elastic recoil and compressive properties of materials to design suits that might simulate the axial loading of gravity, prevent bone resorption (and also result in associated muscle tone required for maintanence of posture in a standing person)? Gradiants of compression at different body sites could at least simulate venous blood flow patterns of normal gravity - preventing lightheadedness after amission.

samardza · 2002-07-13 07:32:02

Don't miss the non-space developements that could prove usefull. Phil Nuytten (www.nuytco.com) is developing a 'swimmable' ADS, it's heavier and stronger than any Mars suit would have to be.

Also the Army 'Land Warrior' technologies could be include with good results.
(HUD, backpack based computer, comm, and GPS)

Ronman · 2002-10-06 14:05:16

How 'bout placing critical systems next to the skin - then spraying a suit on - sort of like that foam in a can stuff? Wash it off when you come in. New suit every time, except for the helmut, and the stuff you cover with foam/whatever ( like the environmental regulating gear)

Shaun Barrett · 2002-10-07 21:03:20

A space suit in a spray can!! It sounds impossible, but I'm not brave enough to say it'll never happen!

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2004-03-10 15:33:01

The Russian Cosmonaut suit designs were so good that even people from America, China and Europe started to change their later designs to match those of the old Russia space suit.
Trying to build a suit for the Apollo moon programme was very hard, lower gravity, rock terrain strong heat and deep cold temperatures, no air, soft dusty lunar soil.
MArs will be hard, but the design for a Martian suit will be easier than the designs of those that went into outspace, the moon and spacestation repairs.

Enyo · 2004-04-13 15:48:13

A wet suit would depressurize just as if you were wearing jeans. Somehow, I don't think that will work.

Mechanical counterpressure does work. Do a google look up on MCP, space activity suit, Biosuit, Dava Newman and Peter Webb.

There are issues with the concept. Not least is more testing of a full suit is needed to reach some conclusions about the best design.

-If made of rubber or spandex like materials then maintaining body size becomes an issue. You can't gain or loose much weight before the suit won't fit.

-The breasts area (women), armpits, palms and crouch all have problems with loss of mechanical counter pressure. Padding and bladders have been used to fix these problems.

-The suit fits really tightly making donning and doffing hard and painful.

Painted on suits offers a fix to all these issues, but is even less likely to meet with astronaut approval.

The major advantages of MCP is the near nude range mobility, the light weight and the easy storability.

bolbuyk · 2004-04-13 15:56:40

Maybe this mechanical pressure can be limited to the fingers and that can be a good idea. As far as I know there pressurized clothes are most unwelcome.

SBird · 2004-04-13 16:16:23

That's not a bad idea. Why not just pressurize the torso - eliminating most of the problems with the problem concave areas. Leave the legs and arms in unpressurized sleeves with adjustable straps so that size changes can be accomodated.

One advantage is that the torso/head region can be reinforced against impacts and made to be more ofa hard shell. If an astronaut takes a tumble and cuts open his kneepad, there's no explosive decompression. Instead, there's a localized hickey effect and blood being siphoned out ofa cut. While not a great situation, it's not instantly lethal and can easily be treated in the field.

From single track mountain biking, I can attest that crashes overwhelmingly favor the extremeties for tearing up clothing. Any design that eliminates that weak link is inherently safer already regardless of what other advantages the design confers.

Algol · 2004-04-14 10:26:40

Mechanical counter pressure suits also have problems at the back of the knees and elbows where air pockets are needed to facilitate movement as well as the chest (for men) for breathing. The main problem i have when considering them though is the change in volume fo your body as you move - muscles etc. I cant think of a decent way to take account of muscles expandinga and contracting.....

But i do believe they offer a partial answer to the need for a durable mars-suit. A hybrid design will eventually be decided upon in my opinion.

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