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."

Comments

Confusion

[Umbral Blot]

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, and if it is it shouldn't be used in planetary exploration. Otherwise you end up with the following situation: "I would have been the first man to set foot on mars, but it was windy out, so we went home".

Re:Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a spacesuit, it shouldn't be affected by bad weather

Because if there's one thing a mars space suit needs, it's the ability to function in a rainstorm?

Re:Confusion

[TenLow]

So how are they going to protect the spectators on mars?

Just my luck

[Carpe PM]

I would have been there, since I live in North Dakota, but oddly enough I was in outer space at the time. How ironic.

Planetary spacesuit?

[Tx]

"We wanted to really concentrate on the suit to improve mobility and to create a planetary spacesuit instead one for zero [gravity],"

Surely if it's used in space, it's a spacesuit. But if it's for use on a planet rather than in space, it should be called something else. I propose we call it a Hazardous EnVironment or HEV suit ;).

Joints

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Re:Joints

[Oldsmobile]

"They are only pressurising this suit to 1 PSI, about a quarter of what is required."

This raises questions about "ballooning". When a suit is pressurised, it balloons out and soon our intrepid space traveller is walking and looking like the Michelin man. This can of course be solved by making the suit out of hard materials, but probably increases complexity.

I do agree with parent, that making it as simple as possible should be a priority. Those things will have to be maintained with simple tools and thus should be made foolproof.

Re:Joints

[MichaelSmith]

The original apollo era EVA suits were quite mobility limiting.

My post was based on these comments by Dave Scott.

[Scott - "It was probably due to the suit fit. I don't know how much time other people spent, but I spent a fair amount of time getting suits fitted, from early days. I was going to do an EVA on Gemini VIII. I spent a lot of time on the Gemini suit, getting it fitted, because one of the problems that Ed White had (on Gemini IV) was mobility. So they felt that if you had a proper fit, then you had better mobility. So I spent a lot of time with the suit guys, and they spent a lot of time with me. And I had good mobility. And that's why, today, when you look at the suits, they're trying to build with all these joints and I think they're missing the point. I think if you take this design and fit it properly, it's fine. I mean, you don't really need to bend over much, but I don't remember any conscious problem in bending over. Certainly it wasn't effortless but, on the other hand, it didn't require a big deal. You want to bend over, you go bend over. But I have to give it to the suit guys; they fit me very well. They did a good job tailoring the suit, which probably costs a lot less than building a suit with twenty joints, or whatever they're trying to do. (Guffaws)"]

Re:"Weather permitting" in North Dakota!?!

[bmo]

Pffft! North Dakota weather is positively TEMPERATE compared to the place that has a sign that reads:

US Forest Service

STOP

THE AREA AHEAD HAS THE WORST WEATHER IN AMERICA. MANY HAVE DIED THERE FROM EXPOSURE, EVEN IN THE SUMMER. TURN BACK NOW IF THE WEATHER IS BAD.

Mount Washington has hurricane force winds and sub-freezing temperatures _every month of the year_. The highest wind speed over land ever recorded was measured from the summit at 231MPH before the anemometer was destroyed. The number of days of hurricane force winds average 110 days/year. In January, that means every 3 out of 4 days.

Deaths: http://www.mountwashington.com/deaths/index.html

North Dakota doesn't even come close.

--

BMO

Re:Wrong place to test it

[Ebirah]

Using the dry valleys of Antarctica would push up the cost of testing considerably. While they do approach Martian temperatures more closely than most terrestrial sites, the environment is predominantly bare rock, and the atmospheric pressure is normal for Earth.

So they only really (approximately) satisfy one of the conditions (temperature) that needs to be tested, which can probably be dealt with just as well (and much more cost-effectively) in a large refrigerator. The suit's handling of Martian atmospheric pressure can't really be tested in any natural terrestrial environment. I suspect North Dakota probably provides an adequate facsimile of Martian terrain, though (and at a reasonable price).

Re:Wrong place to test it

[tverbeek]

I think they should test it in Antartica, not in North Dakota.

They probably wanted to test it in an environment without a lot of people. So North Dakota won.

$100,000

[alex_vegas]

Is anyone struck by how inexpensive $100,000 seems for a space suit

Re:Pressurized?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Mars, Slashdot, and Radiation

[Howzer]

It seems like every time there's a Slashdot story on Mars, someone runs around like Chicken Little shouting "The Radiation! The Radiation!"

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.