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Historical Look at Pressure Suits

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the garbage-can-and-a-plastic-bag dept.

Ant writes to tell us about an interesting site that takes a look at the history of space suits. There is a pretty comprehensive look at space suit design from 1935 to present across all nations. An interesting tour of our progress towards exploration of the unknown. From the article: "The first full pressure suit was made by an English firm for the American balloonist Mark Ridge. The suit was taken to 17 torr (25.6 km) pressurized to 11.1 km. The English broke two world records with the Mark Ridge Suit in 1935."

11 comments

  1. Uhhhh...don't you mean... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "The suit was taken to 17 torr (25.6 km) pressurized to 11.1 km."

    ...The suit was taken to 11.1 km (25.6 km) pressurized to 17 torr.

    Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot this is slashdot, noone gives a shit about mundane details...

    1. Re:Uhhhh...don't you mean... by halftrack · · Score: 4, Informative

      The summary is correct. How could 11.1 km == 25.6 km?!?

      What it means is; 17 torr ~ 2.3 kPa which probably is the pressure at 25.5 km (as indicated by this table.)

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    2. Re:Uhhhh...don't you mean... by Tango42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it means they took it to 25.6km where the pressure is 17 torr and the suit was preasurised to the equivilent of 11.1km. It's badly worded, but that's the only interrpretation I can think of that makes sense.

    3. Re:Uhhhh...don't you mean... by damian+cosmas · · Score: 1

      That would make more sense, since 17 torr at an elevation of 26 km is damn near a vacuum, and 11 km is closer to the Summit of Everest or the cruising altitude of a commercial airliner, both of which are probably pretty uncomfortable without extra oxygen, but also probably doable.

    4. Re:Uhhhh...don't you mean... by Tango42 · · Score: 1

      I think you can survive 11km for a few hours (people have climbed Mt. Everest without oxygen, afterall), so that probably makes sense. Of course, if it was pressurised with pure oxygen, rather than air, it would be absolutely fine. They would use the lowest presure they could to make it easier - both to make the suit and to move once in it.

  2. how about.... by toQDuj · · Score: -1, Troll

    Actually having a scientist check article submissions for /.?
    One who can distinguish between a pressure unit and a lenth unit?

    B.

    --
    Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
  3. Somebody got fooled... by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

    That page has "Last update 31 August 2005." at the bottom. Because it has "space wire Updated: January 06, 2006" prominently near the top, somebody thought it was news - just that this isn't "space wire".

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  4. Too much Larry? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Oh, I thought at first that it was "historical look at leisure suits"

  5. Some other suites (from past and future) by cpuffer_hammer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Also check out http://www.globaleffects.com/B_02_frameset.html for some more picks of real and prop suites.

  6. Nevermind the space suits... by stvangel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's a wonderful site on anything involving historical space exploration and rocketry. I've been going there for years. I have a lot of these wonderful historical sites. These are quasi-related:

    http://www.astronautix.com/
    The home page of this site.

    http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.com/
    A site on the history of nuclear weaponry.

    http://www.fas.org/
    The Federation of American Scientists. Look on the left menu for links to weapons, rockets, missiles...

    http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanet s/
    The Nine Planets - A site about our solar system.

    Every time I find a good historical site, I add it to my collection. Wikipedia.org just goes without saying.

  7. good and bogus depictions in science fiction by bcrowell · · Score: 1
    Science fiction author Robert Heinlein worked as an engineer designing pressure suits during WWII at the Naval Aircraft Factory, so his depictions of pressure suits in his fiction was well informed. One of his best novels, IMO, is Have Space Suit -- Will Travel, which centers around the spacesuit a teenager wins in a TV contest.

    A lot of the depictions of pressure suits in science fiction are totally bogus scientifically -- people get into space suits without prebreathing, or rapidly perform physical tasks that are really incredibly awkward to do when you're inside what's essentially inflatable balloon. (They try to make the joints constant-volume, but there's still a tendency for the suit to stiffen up under pressure. That's why they use low-pressure, pure oxygen, which necessitates the prebreathing so that the astronauts don't get the bends when they decompress from cabin pressure.)

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