Spacesuits - personal spaceship

publiusr · 2006-05-04 14:36:12

That spacesuit looks lame. Apollo suits had an antagonizing look to them--such that people jump when what looked to be a statue moved and scared tourists.

I think suits don't need to be photographed unless they have a good look to avoid the giggle factor.

Rxke · 2006-05-05 01:04:01

The suits might look lame, but it's a clever approach: a simple (probably discardable) coveralls over the pressure suit, though I agree the colour is a bit errr... uncool, heh.

Grypd · 2006-05-05 14:18:02

Actually the blue colour may well be part of the suits advantages. The Mars crews will be working well away from the lander and could be at risk from accidents. if you need to get to your comrade in a hurry it is best if you can see him. Mars is a patchwork of gray,red,brown and black. Blue especially that colour would stick out like a sore thumb abd in the interests of safety it is better than white.

Austin Stanley · 2006-05-05 17:12:30

Actually the blue colour may well be part of the suits advantages. The Mars crews will be working well away from the lander and could be at risk from accidents. if you need to get to your comrade in a hurry it is best if you can see him. Mars is a patchwork of gray,red,brown and black. Blue especially that colour would stick out like a sore thumb abd in the interests of safety it is better than white.

An excellent point. Blue or maybe green would be smart colors to make the suit out of so that they would be more visible, especialy in the distance. Color descrimination is like the 3rd most important factor the human eye viewing an object.

Our current spacesuits are white not simply for looks, but to decrease the amount of heat absourbed from light. This will probably not be as big a factor on Mars which has an atmosphere to help remove heat and to de-intensify sunlight. I supose the contrast with the black background of space is also a reason.

SpaceNut · 2006-05-05 20:10:42

Just another article This suit was made for walkin'.... . . on the moon and Mars This is more of history of where we have been...

Grypd · 2006-05-06 09:26:28

Mars as a planet will be anything like Hot unlike the Moon absorbtion of light will not be a problem. Still I know lightness of material is essential for a space suit but Im still of the mind that a hard suit would be more practicle for the Moon and Mars especially when it comes down to the debilitating dust.

Rxke · 2006-05-06 10:04:53

Why?

Grypd · 2006-05-06 16:50:50

A hard suit will not have the folds and creases that give the dust places to be in. Also there is the possibility of using a simple technique to remove this dust that can be used only on such a design. (electro static removal, the dust is positively charged and an alternating negative charge would if designed well fling the dust off). Also the increased strength of the suit also allows the use of high pressures to simply stop micro fine dust entering the suit.

The other advantage to hard suits is that they allow standard pressures to be used being stronger and this means no long periods of pre breathing exercises and of course no risk of the bends and nitrogen narcosis. This could well be critical in the Mars missions as it may be a necassary to instantly go and sort a problem.

The only problem with hard suits and high pressures is the lack of mobility in the extremes ie the gloves and this can be critical but advances in robotics and bionics allows the creation of suits with electrical help to the astronaut. Still the extra pressure does improve insulation and with the cold of Mars and the Moon this is definitly a good idea.

GCNRevenger · 2006-05-06 18:07:18

A hard suit is probably not the answer, the lack of mobility they offer is just too extreme. This might be okay for spacewalks in zero gravity, when you don't need much mobility, but for Mars something even better then current low pressure soft suits is a must, especially given the long surface stays.

The obvious answer is not to pressurize the whole suit, but only the head, hands, and perhaps the feet: a mechanical counter-pressure suit that uses constricting fabric to maintain pressure against the wearers' skin instead of air pressure. The helmet could be high pressure to skip the need for decompression while the gloves/boots would operate at low pressure for maximum dexterity.

An electrostatic anti-dust system ought to be adaptable to any suit, you just need a conductive outer liner. I still think that CO2 will be used for dust removal.

JonClarke · 2006-05-10 03:50:09

The advantage of a hybrid suit such as you suggest is that the torso contains almost all the problem areas with complex and sensitive surfaces whereas the arms and legs are basically a series of cylinders.

Jon

SpaceNut · 2006-05-12 06:31:06

fabiosau being a new to Newmars had posted in a couple of places some more info and web sites with regards to the testing in the badlands area. PROTOTYPE MARS SUIT was one of those threads. It was not unit todays article Students finish Mars spacesuit test that I finally drew the connections back to fabiosau as being one and the same in the article. WOW a star is born well at least a celeb to some of us that would jump at the chance to do the same.

Sau was the guinea pig for an experimental Mars spacesuit that he and about 40 other students from five North Dakota schools developed under a $100,000 grant from NASA. The grant is a tiny fraction compared with the price tag of $22 million each for space shuttle suits.
It took about 20 minutes for Sau to put on the 47-pound (21-kilogram), two-piece spacesuit with the help of two others. While it is heavy for exploring the Badlands, it would weigh only about 16 pounds (7.3 kilograms) in the lower gravity of Mars.
It is designed so the wearer can walk up a 45-degree slope. The gloves, which must withstand low pressure and cold, have enough dexterity for tying a shoe, Sau said. Its boots are modified cold-weather hunting boots.

While the suit was tested in a hot setting and the tester fabiosau was kept cool this is not quite the conditions that mars will have. We will need heating rather than cooling and that will probably make the suit weight rise quite possibly.

GCNRevenger · 2006-05-12 06:47:47

Not nessesarrily

You can't really think of Mars like you would the Earth or the Moon: on Mars, there is very little atmosphere to carry heat away from the suit, but there is no super-intense unfilterd sunlight to cause extreme heating like the Moon. Mars is somewhere inbetween, and the wearer's body heat might need to be removed with some kind of cooling system.

Austin Stanley · 2006-05-14 00:39:37

Not nessesarrily
You can't really think of Mars like you would the Earth or the Moon: on Mars, there is very little atmosphere to carry heat away from the suit, but there is no super-intense unfilterd sunlight to cause extreme heating like the Moon. Mars is somewhere inbetween, and the wearer's body heat might need to be removed with some kind of cooling system.

Though in fairness, a suit designed for Space or the Moon would work on Mars, but would be overkill for what is necessary. I've read up on the suit designed, and it's actualy not that bad. One of the advantages of a fully inflated design would be that it would not suffer the fatique issues you might see in a mechanical pressure suit, which could become important over the long hall and many Mars walks.

:: EDIT ::
Related to the heat issue, I don't know about the feasibility of using liquid O2 in the suit's air supply, but the ability of expanding gases to remove heat should not be ignored.

SpaceNut · 2007-02-12 22:41:54

WALKING TALL: UH STUDENT WORKING ON SPACE SUIT REDESIGN FOR NASA
Graduate Student’s Research Focuses on Stability and Locomotion

Melissa Scott-Pandorf is a Fellow of the Texas Space Grant Consortium.
“NASA’s mission to send humans back to the Moon is closer to a reality every day,” Scott-Pandorf, a doctoral student in the UH Department of Health and Human Performance, said. “Astronauts will need to travel easily over the planet’s terrain, meaning their mobility will be important for overall mission success.”
To begin her study, Scott-Pandorf looked at hours and hours of lunar moon-walk video to determine how fast and how far astronauts traveled wearing all of the needed equipment. That information, combined with metabolic indicators collected while the astronauts worked on the lunar surface, was used to calculate the amount of energy expelled while walking on the moon. Scott-Pandorf said this is valuable information that will help NASA officials decide how much is too much to include on an astronaut’s space suit.

SpaceNut · 2007-03-21 21:33:11

I knew this had the favor of being related to another post...

Students' spacesuit to be tested in Utah

A spacesuit developed by students at the University of North Dakota and four other schools will be tested in the Utah desert.
UND tested the spacesuit in western North Dakota last May. It was developed by students from UND, North Dakota State University, Dickinson State, the state College of Science and Turtle Mountain Community College, using a $100,000 NASA grant.

SpaceNut · 2007-12-27 10:54:14

MIT team develops ’Bio-Suit’ for NASA for the next generation of spacewear.

The project began almost 10 years ago with NASA funding, which has since been scrapped.
Newman’s team is seeking new funding they believe could allow the suit to be put into production in three to five years.
The funding is necessary to allow the team to overcome a space-tailoring hurdle: The suit fits perfectly when exposed to the vacuum of space, but it is extremely tight and difficult to put on on Earth, according to Newman’s assistant James Waldie, a post-doctoral associate on the bio-suit project.
“We need to use active elastics, material which expands and contracts when you want it,” Waldie said. “That is the problem we need to overcome to make this viable.”
Among its key innovations, the Bio-Suit applies pressure directly to the skin instead of using bulky air pressure devices to protect humans from the vacuum of space - a system called mechanical counterpressure.
The main function of a spacesuit is to maintain air pressure, or the force exerted on the human body by the weight of the atmosphere, in the airless vacuum of space, or, for instance, in the wafer-thin atmosphere of Mars.
“When we go into the vacuum of the Moon, to keep someone alive we need to be able to provide a third of an atmosphere.

cIclops · 2008-03-04 01:41:24

EVA System Reference 2 (ESR2) - inspace and lunar surface configurations

From: EVA systems project (PDF 3MB) - 26 Feb 2008

This design may be the basis for the Mars surface suit.

cIclops · 2008-03-12 03:25:16

In helmet display concept

New Space Suit Design

NASA Glenn’s capability in space flight software, power and communications is being used to develop the Communications, Avionics, and Information (CAI) and Power Subsystems for the next generation space suit. This effort supports the Constellation Program’s Extra-Vehicular Activities (EVA) Systems Project, which is led by Johnson Space Center and supported by Glenn, industry and academia.
Venturing outside a spacecraft to conduct assembly, maintenance or emergency repairs is one of the most important activities that an astronaut performs. It is also one of the most dangerous. Astronauts must wear special clothing when executing EVA to protect them from the harsh environment of space.
The purpose of the EVA Systems Project is to build a new space suit architecture that can be upgraded to meet future exploration mission requirements. The space suits currently used for Space Shuttle and International Space Station missions each weigh approximately 300 lbs. and require 24 hours of preparation and maintenance time for every 8-hour period of EVA. Advancements over the current suit design are needed to provide improved functionality, reliability and productivity, while decreasing mass, astronaut workload and operating costs.

SpaceNut · 2008-03-12 08:38:47

Have work with displays a bit and near eye units have lots of things to be worked for not only the user but also the environment. Your average lcd image gets washed out in normal daylight and pixel density will be an issue to get images large enough for some people. Then there is the distraction of looking at the display while still moving and if you need glasses to focus on objects close up when you go to look away everything will be blurry.

cIclops · 2008-03-12 09:21:04

Giving an astronaut access to information in their spacesuit is going to need some new technology. Clearly they can't use the standard interfaces such as keyboards and mice. Right now they have voice and whatever those read only note pad things are called on their arms and legs. If an internal HUD type device won't work, perhaps a wrist or chest mounted displayed will. Voice or muscle activated input devices are improving all the time. Support for in suit data will be even more important when working on Mars because real time support from Earth will not be possible.

cIclops · 2008-04-30 03:22:42

Solicitation for information about Helmet Mounted Display (HMD) - 28 Apr 2008

Current ISS and Shuttle EVA crewmember information displays will not meet the need of Constellation Program's Extravehicular Activities that will be performed on the Lunar surface. Crewmembers will need access to extended information including: procedural checklists, suit status information, caution and warning information, navigational aids, biomedical sensor readings, metabolic rate, and still imagery and video. The Constellation Program's next generation of space suits will require the means to display the graphical information listed above, ideally using a hands free device, such as an HMD.

Proposed HMD Requirements (doc)

louis · 2008-05-03 15:49:11

Don't know if anyone's seen that wonderful film of the guy who free fell/parachuted from the edge of space back down to earth in about 1960...

Wondered whether it is possible to free fall from LEO in a big space suit (maybe with a little push from a small rocket to get you heading back to earth?).

If so, how long would it take?

If it was possible, wouldn't it be the simplest way to get people back down to earth. So once you've got your Mars return craft up there, it only ever goes back to LEO and only very light launchers are then used to ferry personnel and supplies up to the craft from earth.

cIclops · 2008-05-04 03:00:15

Here's a clip on youtube - and more details here

There's a big difference between falling from the ISS altitude of about 400km and reentering from LEO at the same altitude - it's about a factor of 400 in energy. Soyuz takes about an hour to land after it's deorbit burn.

LEO velocity is about 8 kms/sec, all that energy has to go somewhere. Spacecraft use friction turn it into heat - LOTS of heat - so they need heavy heat shields to stop burning up.

So, add a heat shield to a spacesuit and a small deorbit propulsion unit plus a parachute etc etc and it should work, but then it's a spacecraft not a spacesuit.

louis · 2008-05-04 14:50:56

Apologies for lack of space science...OK, sounds like a small one person pod might work and be more cost effective.

JoshNH4H · 2008-05-04 17:56:28

something like: Aerobake, taking As long As possible, to reduce heat flux, with using the heat shock as a NTR, then parachute to splashdown?

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#101 2006-05-04 14:36:12

Re: Spacesuits - personal spaceship

#102 2006-05-05 01:04:01

Re: Spacesuits - personal spaceship

#103 2006-05-05 14:18:02

Re: Spacesuits - personal spaceship

#104 2006-05-05 17:12:30

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#105 2006-05-05 20:10:42

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#106 2006-05-06 09:26:28

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#107 2006-05-06 10:04:53

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#108 2006-05-06 16:50:50

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#109 2006-05-06 18:07:18

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#110 2006-05-10 03:50:09

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#111 2006-05-12 06:31:06

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#112 2006-05-12 06:47:47

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#113 2006-05-14 00:39:37

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#114 2007-02-12 22:41:54

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#115 2007-03-21 21:33:11

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#116 2007-12-27 10:54:14

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#117 2008-03-04 01:41:24

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#118 2008-03-12 03:25:16

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#119 2008-03-12 08:38:47

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#120 2008-03-12 09:21:04

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#121 2008-04-30 03:22:42

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#122 2008-05-03 15:49:11

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#123 2008-05-04 03:00:15

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#124 2008-05-04 14:50:56

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#125 2008-05-04 17:56:28

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