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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
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit-0716.html
They're waiting for you, Gordon. In the Test Chamber.
All these skintight spacesuits on attractive women in science fiction movies are finally reality!
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Exclusive pictures.
Turns out, it only works if you wear it in a robotic cat.
libertarian: (n) socially liberal, financially conservative; neither left, nor right.
The next thing they have to make is a chain metal bikini that can give Elven Warrior Maidens the protection from dragon fire they need.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
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.
And on that note, how is having 300 lbs (or mass-equivalent) less gear going to keep you from hopping off the moon into outerspace forever? Didn't the extra mass come in handy to keep people from flying away?
libertarian: (n) socially liberal, financially conservative; neither left, nor right.
You see, they were really trying to get Teri Hatcher, but the memo just said "T. Hatcher".
Somebody misread it as Thatcher, and just ran with it.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
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..
n g-Galaxy-Eight/dp/0316771635
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-Colonizi
ìì!
You also make it a lot less vulnerable to life-threatening damage.
Chalk up another one for the old Analog, right along with Giant Meteor Impact.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
No, silly! A pound is a unit of currency. A stone is a unit of weight.
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp
Her right ear looks to be 1/4" lower than the right. Deal breaker, that is.
I drank what? -- Socrates
You've seen too many bad movies. A hole would result in some localized swelling of the exposed tissue. I'd be more concerned about severe sunburn, which can happen quickly in space.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
won't people see the diaper?
How we know is more important than what we know.
"Of course, most of us would look like crap in a tight spandex bodystocking anyway."
And therein is how I will repel the micro-meteorites. My ugly-ass body will scare them enough to deflect their path.
-nB
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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
n/t
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
It gives us a tight, form-fitting suit to be worn by fit women going into space.
Admittedly, this is just a first step to a world where all the women look like the covers of 50's pulp magazines, but really, how can that *not* improve society.
I for one welcome our new Amazonian over, um, overladies?
- Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Really, stone should be a unit for measuring drug potency.
You forgot, "4. I doubt you have a giant boner."
Obviously I don't understand how this thing works or can work.
I think it's just that you don't understand how lungs work.
When you inhale you don't inflate your lungs by increasing their volume, like opening a bellows.
The way you inhale is by lowering the pressure in your chest cavity by means of the diaphragm, which contracts downwards, increasing chest volume. As the pressure in your chest (outside your lungs) decreases, air forces itself into your lungs and inflates them.
It seems to me that if this thing is mechanically applying 16 PSI in vacuum then it must apply 32 PSI when inside the capsule.
Yeah, but there's air inside your body pushing out, too, remember. That's what the 16 PSI is there for, in fact - to restrain the gases within your body. That's why the suit has to be pressurized - to push back on the pressures within your body that, normally, the atmosphere will push back against.
So, inside the capsule, you're facing 32 Psi minus the 16 psi pushing out from inside you, so you're only against the 16 psi tension of the suit. I imagine it's like breathing with an ace bandage (or, like, a bra) around your chest - more difficult but certainly not impossible.
And secondly even if you solved that, then you still have the problem of the 32 psi pressure making it harder to dissolve gas in your blood, so your cells cant get air or release CO2.
Higher PSI makes it easier, not harder, to dissolve gases in fluids.
Finally, I can't see how this works around your head. If the suit is not pressurized then how do you maintain 16psi pressure on the face?
Big bubble helmet pressurized to 16 psi, like always. I don't see the problem.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
Well, ignoring for now that atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi, not 16 psi - there's no need for the suit or the occupant to actually be at sea level atmospheric pressure. In fact, it may be undesirable, as it means you need more powerful life support systems - more weight, more complexity.
The human body is fine at 0.2 atmospheres so long as it's getting enough oxygen. While in the spacecraft without a helmet, with 0.2 atm (less than 4 psi) being pressed against your chest might be uncomfortable, it's not going to kill you.
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