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NASA Engineers Work on New Spacesuits
NotCoward writes "In labs at Johnson Space Center, away from the buzz about NASA's new spaceship and its new missions to the moon and Mars, a group of engineers are plodding away at another piece of the puzzle: spacesuits. Astronaut apparel has evolved over the decades from Mercury's aluminum foil-looking outfits to the bulky, 275-pound whites now used on jaunts outside the space station. While it's too early in the process to know how the new space suits will look, the space agency is hoping to make new suits both high-tech and low-maintenance."
That will bring a whole new meaning to Moonwalking.
We won't feel that we're living in the future and its a wonderful time to be alive until they introduce fishbowl helmets like in golden age-style sci-fi cover art (e.g. Flynn's Lodestar ). This nonsense about a white helmet with just a gold visor is making millions of children apathetic to the space program.
The apollo suits used two tanks of gaseous oxygen. The main tank at just over 1000 psi and the OPS backup tank at 6000 psi. The main tank was filled from a hose inside the LM. The OPS tank was filled once only on the ground.
EVA time was limited first by the quantity of water for the sublimators and second by oxygen quantity. The battery life was also a limiting factor, but I think it came third by a long margin.
Its not hard to carry more water for cooling. The reason it was in short supply on the moon was that the original designs for the PLSS didn't allow enough space.
But those high pressure oxygen tanks are a real pain. The structure contributes to the overall mass. The volume pushes the mass up because it takes space. Temperature is a problem anyway because it increases gas pressure and reduces density.
So if we are designing new suits I think we should find ways of stocking them with LOX. Probably in something like a vacuum flask. Maybe that is the next big step.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
From the article...
It will be interesting to see what type of designs they come up with and how they will strip the suits of a good 125-130 pounds. It would be funny to see them go back to something more retro looking like the new Spaceshuttle they're building. =p
Bite my shiny metal ass.
"Anything you forget to take with you will kill you; anything you do remember to bring but that doesn't work will kill you; and if you're in any doubt, assume everything will kill you."
Sound advice, although I suspect the missus takes it to heart whenever we go on holiday for a weekend.
Meta will eat itself
Wven with the current USD-Sterling exchange rate.
Wait... did you mean that it "weighs" 39.2857 cloves?
Seriously; can we please try to use metric consistently, as NASA are finally doing themselves.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Will they come with a knife, rubber mallet, bb gun, tubing and pepper spray?
You never know when an astronaut might need those things.
(I'm assuming the diapers will still be included.)
Read any good sonnets lately?
Hmmm... Pounds Sterling? Do they still use those? If they weighed the suit in stones would it make you feel better?
New LOX-fuelled vacuum flask wearing overlords. Let me be the first to write it. However, would it really be wise to use something like this? At least compressed gas involves only relatively straightforward mechanical design, well proven over many generations. Portable cryogenics look like an interesting engineering design too far. If, which is admittedly totally improbable, I were to have to depend on one of these things, I would want to know I was relying on an extremely mature technology.
Pining for the fjords
Is that the suit they are describing or the NASA geeks dream girl?
I still want the suits from Planetes with the touch-screen interface. Don't laugh if you haven't seen the show; it's not as silly as it sounds.
Nothing like setting out with two mutually exclusive goals.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
They won't be using the new suits on Mars (for any extended period of time, at least), and NASA damn well knows it.
For one thing, Mars has an atmosphere. Not directly breathable, of course... but not toxic either. So there's no need for Mars explorers to carry both oxygen AND "bulk" gas (like nitrogen) to give it volume and pressure. Instead, they can do what airplanes do... pressurize the outside air, warm it up, and inject small amounts of pure oxygen into it.
Likewise, a suit for outdoor use on Mars doesn't have to be pressurized beyond respiratory needs, or even airtight. Think: what would you wear to safely go outside at the South Pole in the middle of winter when it's -100C outside and windy. It needs to be highly insulated, and probably incorporate electric or chemical heat... but doesn't need the sheer bulk of moonsuits and EVA suits. If a Mars suit were torn, you might end up with a nasty case of frostbite, but as long as you were able to hook up to a good power and oxygen source you'd probably make it home with treatable injuries.
I fully expect to see NASA testing suits in Antarctica within a decade, both to get practical user evaluations of prototype designs AND solve a few nasty problems we have TODAY down there (if something goes wrong at the South Pole midwinter that requires outdoor travel, right now it's VERY dangerous to go outside there). Antarctica is nowhere near as cold, but I see lots of potential for spinoff technologies down there (like the iBot vs Segway).
hope they produce something slick and smooth like the 2001 suits http://www.2001spacesuit.com/
/. post in it's own right?
There - you didn't expect that, did you? Perhaps this should be a
"NASA wants to make the new spacesuit usable for launch, at the space station and on the moon and Mars."
There's one little problem with this. A suit designed for vacuum won't work properly on Mars. The Apollo suits (and STS/ISS EVA suits) use a form of insulation that will cause major user overheating in Mars' atmosphere. Also, most proposed Mars suits would use a life support system more like SCUBA tanks than current spacesuits, extremely low-power, easily re-filled and simple to maintain. It's more than just swapping out the upper parts of the suit based on task, some of what the article proposes won't work. The fundamental differences in environments will seriously hinder that plan.
Another issue is that for a single-suit strategy this means that the astronauts coming back from the Moon will be bringing their filthy suits back with them. This means several days of breathing the dust, plus the dust will saturate the Orion capsule's cabin. Not a good plan for a reusable vehicle.
Some of these issues can be resolved, others are just the different natures of the planets. Can tech developed for lunar exploration help with Mars? Sure, but it's not going to be the same spacesuits across all uses. Interfaces, communications, maybe parts of the life support pack, materials and assembly techniques will find crossover. The thing you don't want is to land on Mars only to realize that the vacuum-insulation in your suits is totally wrong and you can't do EVA without overheating. Even the difference between orbital suits and the lunar suits are huge, they are all different environments.
The right suit for Mars is based, IMHO, around Mechanical Counter-Pressure (MCP) principals instead of constant-volume balloon suits. The MIT "BioSuit" and NASA's old Space Activity Suit are excellent examples. MCP suits (and SCUBA-type air supply) are the only current approaches that can lead to sub-100lb (~40kg for you metrics) suits for Mars exploration. The only spacesuit concept that might work across environments would be a Newtsuit-type hard suit, and even then it's going to be heavy.
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
...they shouldn't forget: a tinfoil hat.
this will strip the suit a hundred of pounds and it will look retro.
1. Have spacesuit
2. Wander around on Earth until ETs pick them up
3. Will travel!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Does anyone know how they handled rising CO2 levels in apollo 13?
But it should allow for easy recharge. And this time, have the rover carry lots of power and O2. Once you do that, then you can extend the trips. Keep in mind that weight does not matter in space (the bulk and ease of moving around does). Of course, on the planet, the weight does matter. But I think that a requirement that says that I am within an hour of my rover is probably not a big deal.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
For those who are interested, the AIAA covered this [PDF] in the July 2006 issue of Aerospace America.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
This is a boondoggle in search of a problem because let's face facts, kids, manned spaceflight will come to an end with the end of the ISS program. We're not going back to the moon, we're not going to Mars. End of story. They might as well spend their effort building protective shelters for the 140 degree earth we'll have to live on soon.
...the have been using light, easy to use and easy to repair spacesuits for decades (probable the same ones, at that). However, NASA has been looking at their design for years. The Russian space suit is a single piece and the user enters it through the back and a counterpart uses closes it from behind. Really this doesn't seem like a big deal unless they are truly in the last phases of design.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
I've seen other articles where they explain that human skin is airtight enough to survive space exposure, it just doesn't stand up to the negative pressure very well.
Why not simply have several layers of suit based upon the needs of the situation.
- EVA: Pressure suit, Heavy Life Support, Radiation Insulation, Temperature Insulation, zero G equipment
- Moon: Pressure suit, Heavy Life Support, Radiation Insulation, Temperature Insulation, Low G equipment
- Mars: Pressure suit, Light Life Support, Heavy Cold Temperature Insulation
I'm sure there are a lot of high tech solutions to keeping warm that would be less bulky than the current space-suits.I typed an E on a Metric keyboard, but Slashdot's Imperial software rotated it 90 degrees. I mean. PI/2 radians.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
so I could give a damn.
What costs in NASA equipment is not only the tech or maintenance of it, but all the certifications that make sure that critical equipment won't fail unexpectedly at the worse possible time.
And the space suit seems to be one of those things that must have redundancy and extremely low and predictable failure rate.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
A collector is refurbishing 2001 suits (amongst other things) here:
http://www.2001spacesuit.com/
If this doesn't get modded up you aren't the geeks I think you are!
I bet we end up seeing the same weight, or maybe more, but to counteract the suit NASA will incorporate some sort of motors or something to make the suit easier to use. Kinda like an exoskeleton.
At first I thought this was just another joke.. But I am confused on the 275Lbs. being the"weight" on earth or moon. Here giving a value for the suite mass would actually make much more sense.
it was like that when I got here.. I wasen't here when that happened... second shift musta done that....
Martian gravity is 1/3 of Earth wheras the Moon is 1/6, so looks like they've got to shed 50% weight right out of the box...
We may not survive as long as space lichen or Mir fungus, but data compiled by the Nasa shows that humans can survive deep space vacuum for a short period of time. Skin is elastic enough to keep the bod fluid from instantly exploding/vaporizing.
To quote the NASA link
Yes, you can survive in space Hitchhicker's Guide- or Titan AE- style.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
crazy Nasa pilot[tes] can fit into my space suit? And is there a back door?
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Sure. We'll get on that as soon as you adopt the Euro.
Why the hell are we even bothering with putting so much effort into spacesuits? The vast majority of our EVAs are in space right now, rather than on the moon or any other body. Since most of space is uninteresting, those EVAs tend to occur only a short distance outside of the spacecraft or station that the astronaut has just been aboard. This being the case, I suggest that rather than remove people from the relative safety and comfort of their craft, sticking them into restrictive, uncomfortable suits just to do EVAs, that we use teleoperated robots instead. The astronaut can sit inside the cabin, using the robot to do the EVA work. I would think that the best design would roughly imitate human physiognomy, or at least the parts you need to do EVAs: two arms, a torso connecting them, and a head. The arms can not only be stronger than human arms (mass is still an issue, even when there's no weight), but can themselves contain all the tools the astronaut needs, and can contain many smaller sub-arms and hands for more delicate work, or to hold items in place. The robot could incorporate maneuvering thrusters, avoiding the need for the MMU packs, and a third arm when it needs to grab onto something as a stable platform from which to work. The hands and arms would generally be controlled with a dataglove sort of apparatus, but could also be locked into place so that the astronaut can manipulate other controls or take a break, or use other arms. Vision would be provided by binocular cameras on the head, feeding a VR headset, so that the astronaut can move his head around, enjoy peripheral vision, and can use better optics than his own eyeballs behind a thick visor. The robots could ordinarily be stored in a shed on the exterior of the station or in the cargo bay of the spacecraft, so that the airlock needn't be used at all. The shed would merely be to protect against micrometeorites. Astronauts could work longer hours using the robots, since they wouldn't need to suit up, pre-breath, etc. and could work more efficiently since the hands could not only be as dexterous as human hands, but even better (e.g. a very tiny hand on a long skinny arm could be inserted into satellites so that small parts could be manipulated without resorting to trained ants). They could work in shifts, freezing the robot into place while two people switched who was the operator. Lag is likely to be an issue, so you would probably prefer working from space than from the ground, but that could be done too, in a pinch.
For the moon and Mars, lag is probably way too big of a problem, and people will want to roam around on the surface far from their base. The same ideas can still be used, however, by building a really large hard-skinned robot that has a spacesuit with the same VR rig inside of it. So long as the optics are the right distance apart and on the right part of the body (and remember that you can use smaller sets of optics on finer manipulator arms), the astronaut inside will see the landscape as if he's a giant, and will be able to take giant steps by causing the robot to do so. This would probably be a lot like the landmates in the manga 'Appleseed.' It's a bigger challenge, since it needs to be able to walk and all, but for freefall, the robot idea is clearly superior to always using spacesuits.
Which is not to say that NASA shouldn't look at some better suit designs, just that it has a lot less of a reason to do so if it acts in a practical manner, rather than in a romantic one, where people do all the work out in space. They have done some work on this; I wish they'd do more. One of the main issues is in eliminating lag. I think it's possible.
Meanwhile, what you would not want to emulate is the Canada arm. At least, not the controls for it, which don't work anything like a person's actual arm, even though we're pretty good with those.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Huh. I wrote most of that article about three years ago, after reading a description of the suit in Kings of the High Frontier and finding out that it was based on actual research. I was going to post a comment here linking to it, but a variety of people beat me to the punch.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
If you go back to one of my earlier posts, you'll see that I mention that the 'hydroponics' might not actually be such. They may still end up using some sort of potting material, and I've seen some fascinating research on aereoponics, where the roots aren't even placed in water.
.1 per day? Plants do need minerals and such, but not much. As for composting, why not? Though I was imagining drying and processing via solar energy. Heck, you could even burn it once dry to reduce stuff out. Take more oxygen that way, but we're planning on feeding the stuff to plants eventually anyways.
.1 per day. 100 grams of extras, per person, per day. My idea is that you pile on the resources(mass), until you DO have a sustainable enviroment. As for the chemicals, they haul plant life up fairly frequently in small containers for various tests, so they must have some of the issues resolved.
Yes, there are many complications, which is why I'd love to see some more serious research on it. A test module on the ISS, for example.
This single mix will work fine... for a while. However, the soluable ion ratios get messed up by the plants' selective absorption over time, in addition to plant waste products
A solar still shouldn't be hard, and that'll provide you will distilled water. There's various methods to seperate out the remaining stuff for re-use. Obviously you wouldn't bother until you're talking about a BIG installation.
As for the testing, we're developing silicon based test chips. You place a drop of liquid on them and they can perform hundreds of chemical tests that would normally take at least a milliliter each, and provide results in seconds rather than minutes/hours.
Anyways, back to the minerals. Where are you going to get all of them? You can't just "compost" plants in an isolated environment;
Remember the
waste gasses will build up quickly. Just one example: ammonia. Are you going to just vent it? Then you're losing your precious nitrogen. Going to refine it? Then you'll need a whole refinery, just for that one waste product. What you get out of compost is *not* something that you can just throw into the water for your hydroponics solution, anyways.
Why do you think that I have the 'greenhouse' version take up 1,000 times the initial mass as for traditional systems? Ten tons per person? For one I'm imagining a heck of a lot more air mass per person than the shuttle or ISS provides in it's pressurized spaces. I was half imagining a plankton type system used to bulk out the astronaught's diet for initial versions. And I left an out, in the form of the
Heck, part of my idea, at least in station form, is to keep sending up supplies. The very food you send up helps provide the mass and chemicals necessary to eventually start a biological LS system.
Would you at least agree with my thought that a biological LS system doesn't make sense until you're talking BIG and LONG TERM? Even if you can't recycle everything, the fact that you'd only need to transport up suppliment nutrients and plant fertalizer minerals would be a great savings of mass in the (very)long run. Keep saving the waste(freeze dried) and eventually you'll have enough that sending up a reprocessing facility would make sense.
I don't read AC A human right
Actually the suit pictured in the article doesn't look like it would eliminate peripheral vision. In the second image the cut of the "collar" on the suit doesn't look like it would encompass the head. Rather it looks like it would cup the head had an angle with the top part covering the back of the head and tapering down in front of the ears to the neck. While this isn't a full transparent-aluminum bubble it would allow for a greater degree of peripheral vision than present suits assuming that the remaining portion (not shown in the article) would be clear.