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Mars Space Suit Trials in North Dakota
AbsoluteZero writes to tell us Space.com is reporting that a new spacesuit prototype being designed for Mars exploration is currently being tested in North Dakota. From the article: "The Mars spacesuit is the culmination of 14 months of work by faculty and students with the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium, which received $100,000 from NASA to develop the prototype. The local public is invited to view the Mars spacesuit in action on Sat. May 6, weather permitting, at its North Dakota test site."
There is a lot of comment in the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal about future planetary space suits. Comments from the moon walkers tend to be that engineers today are trying to solve the wrong problems. People assume that the apollo suits were not mobile enough, in fact they were, but the joints in suits were a maintenance nightmare. So if a future suit is more complex because of this supposed moblity requirement then it will be harder to keep it working for a month on Mars.
TFA doesn't say how they plan to improve mobility. They are only pressurising this suit to 1 PSI, about a quarter of what is required. I would like to see them work on the PLSS system as well. Lunar suits were limited to seven hours outside, but the tanks in the back pack were filled by high pressure tanks in the LM descent stage. If oxygen is to be extracted from water during the mission a lot of energy will have to be put into pressurising the PLSS tanks (to 1000 PSI, more would be better) while on the surface.
One of the limiting factors in EVA time will be electrical power. Energy is going to be needed to heat the hands and feet while outside. If a way can be found to distribute heat between to torso and the extremities while outside then power won't be needed for this. Perhaps a liquid cooled garment can be used to distribute heat to cold parts of the body.
Its good to see people working on this kind of thing. Its a pity that there aren't going to be any rides to mars in the forseeable future.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I think they should test it in Antartica, not in North Dakota. Mars is NOT a hot desert but a cold one (mean surface temperature: 210 Kelvin). And I remember some images of a place in Antartica that were just like Mars except for the atmosphere.
Most likely, they were testing the suit by walking up partial cliffs and very rocky areas as indicated by the photos. Doing this in rainy weather makes for a slippery experience. At the very least, you slip and fall on your ass. At the worst, you break your neck.
Life is not for the lazy.
The human body needs pressure to prevent liquids from boiling, gasses coming out out solution in the blood (the bends), etc.
The pressure on Mars is effectively zero.
"very few are from exposure (hypothermia)"
i ving.php
Really?
(This one has the same data, roughly, but it's organized better for counting)
http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/surv
Falls: 41
Hypothermia: 29
"Natural Causes" i.e., heart attacks and other distress: 17
Avalanches: 11
Aircraft deaths: 10
Rail (ALL) related: 9
Falling ice: 5
Slideboards: 4 (Prohibited after 1919)
"Carriages" horse-drawn and auto: 2
Disappearances: 1
(on original page) Murder: 1
(on original page -since 2002-) 2 falls, one hypothermia.
I don't know about you but I count hypothermia being second to falls. That doesn't seem like "very few" to me. Very few to me comes under "slideboards" "carriages" and murders.
--
BMO
Gas pressure isn't the only way to provide the pressure to the human body.
That pressure can also be applied mechanically, by tensioned materials.
Check out the Bio-suit research at MIT.
Exactly. Mod parent up. A suit can provide pressure via tension all over the body. A full helmet or scuba-like breathing apparatus can provide oxygen. There is no need to pressurize the entire suit, its just a waste of energy and makes things needlessly difficult (less flexible, worrying about tears, etc etc).
Assuming a person did get a small tear on a 'tension suit', the worst that would happen is very bad bruising. The ripped area would be exposed to the environment (low pressure) which would pull the flesh a fair amount outside the suit. Nasty bruising, but not fatal at all and confined to the ripped portion of suit.
Of course, as anyone with any real interest in the topic would quickly find out, it's not in any way, shape, or form, a mission-stopper.
There's so much research out there about this! Even NASA - sensibly conservative and cranking up the "danger" to manufacture a mission for the ISS ("Seeing what radiation in space does" as if we don't know from 30+ years of space flight) - isn't as strident as some people who should search before they post.
I guess if the New York Times can get "space radiation" wrong, as they did in 2003, then Slashdot denizens can too, but I foolishly expect more tech-aware people here. Here's the real deal on Mars Mission radiation from the Mars Society based on real science, not on half-remembered sci-fi movies.
To the second point, "bone and muscle degeneration", there are two sets of data on this. First, the very real bone and muscle degeneration experienced by long-term Soviet Mir-jockeys, who simply didn't do their exercises, and second, the remarkable amelioration of these "effects" by all long-term US astronauts, who did do their exercises.
I guess we'll have to recruit the Mars crews from the pool of "following the doctor's orders" astronauts rather than the "ignoring sensible medical advice" group.
I am a bit confused, they will cancel the test if there is bad weather? It's a spacesuit, it shouldn't be affected by bad weather
Well first off, I only skimmed the article, but I have a classmate working on part of the project at NDSU here. My first thought, though, is that it's a space suit... it doesn't rain in space, it just has to withstand the pressure and the occasional impact by high volecity objects. It also doesn't rain water on Mars, but with the atmosphere there could be something similar to look out for, I don't know. That brings me to my second thought.
This is a very early prototype. The last line in the article even says that the project isn't nessicarly to create a final project, but to "train the new generation of space studies students." Really they just have to show the fundamental goals are reachable within the budget requirements for an individual suit, but it doesn't have to be finished and polished. Making it waterproof is relatively easy compared to some of the other design requirements, I'm sure. Regardless, you don't go build a prototype for a parachute and immediately jump out of an airplane; you test the materials strengths, etc first and then gradually put it into conditions that may harm it, even if those conditions are expected, normal circumstances.
For the final disclaimer, my friend is an electrical engineering student working on the health monitoring system. That said, I know little of the design requirements or stage of the project beyond the little I know of what my friend is doing. I've never seen the suit, just some sensors and circuit boards.
Finally, congratulations John, you guys made slashdot!
Horror movies are not a good source for scientific information.
Have a look at this page about vacuum exposure.