MIT Team Designs a New, Sleek, Skintight Spacesuit

iamdrscience writes "MIT aeronautics professor Dava Newman has designed a new spacesuit along with her colleague, Jeff Hoffman and a group of students. This is far sleeker and lighter weight than the suits used by astronauts today, promising greater mobility than the traditional bulky suits of today which can weigh 300lbs or more. Instead of gas pressurization, the new prototype BioSuit employs "mechanical counter-pressure" in the form of skin-tight layers wrapped around the body."
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit-0716.html

Comments

Two thoughts...

[tgd]

One, how are they going to keep the astronaut warm/cool in it.

Two, they talk about how its safer if it gets punctured because the hole can just be patched without affecting the rest of the suit. How are you going to puncture it in a way that doesn't puncture, you know... you? Even if the suit doesn't depressurize, it can't be good for your cardiovascular system to have a gaping wound exposed to vacuum or micropressures.

Re:300 lbs

[BigMike1020]

...Masses 300lbs...

Masses 136kg, weighs nothing. Pound is a unit of force, not mass.

The Millennial Project

[White Shade]

A book called The Millennial project was released several years ago that describes skin-tight space suits in very clear and specific terms, dicussing how a tight material is sufficient to handle the pressure, and how just a chest plate might be useful to provide radiation protection and protection from micrometeors and the like. I believe it described the use of tungsten..

It's a really interesting book, talks about a lot of other technology, and seems pretty darn reasonable about most of it too.

http://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Project-Colonizin g-Galaxy-Eight/dp/0316771635

No it does NOT.

[DrYak]

Particularly since coagulation requires the presence of air in order to occur. Your wound wouldn't clot.

No, it does NOT.
If it was the case, you would die from internal bleeding at the slightest shock that would burst the smallest blood vessel.

Contact to air is only 1 of the huge amount of conditions that can trigger cloting.
Pretty much anything that isn't healthy un-wounded endothelium (the thing that covers the walls inside of blood vessels) can trigger clotting (thus the problems that can be encountered with prosthetic cardiac valves, or people who have damaged blood vessel walls because of way too much high cholesterol, or additive that are put inside glass container for blood sample handling).
Bleeding in water is the only case where you don't clot easily. Not because water has some magical properties that prevents clotting, but just because the coagulation factors that are needed for clotting get diluted in the water.

Back to the case, TFA mentions that bandage should be applied over the suit breach. Some pro-coagulant substance coating the middle of the bandage, where it goes over the hole, should help make sure the wound clots well.