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

obligatory

[penp]

They're waiting for you, Gordon. In the Test Chamber.

Re:Slashcode predicts ...

[A non-mouse Coward]

Exclusive pictures.

Turns out, it only works if you wear it in a robotic cat.

Next challenge:

[Glowing Fish]

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.

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:But why ....

[sokoban]

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.

Re:Another plug for the metric system

[eln]

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? Actually, the new space suit makes astronauts look sexier, thereby causing the moon to be more attracted to them. This increased attraction makes it less likely they will fly away. Of course, it also means they have to change back into the clunky old fashioned space suits when they want to take off, in order to decrease the Moon's attraction enough to let them go. It also means that the Moon may call them several times a day to try to get them to come back, and may occasionally drift closer to the Earth to get a better look at them, despite the restraining order barring the Moon from getting within 230,000 miles.

Sure, this seems like a good idea, but it's really not cool to play around with the Moon's emotions like that. No one has visited it in 35 years, and it is getting pretty desperate for attention.

It sure took a while

[overshoot]

Back when John Campbell was editor of Analog, one of the "Science Fact" articles proposed that spacesuits could be made of gas-permeable mesh that would let skin do what skin does: selective permeability. (Obviously, some parts such as the head still get air!) Provide pressure support but don't try to create an interior environment, and you eliminate a huge number of the worst design challenges of a spacesuit.

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.

Re:Another plug for the metric system

[Chris Burke]

but isn't pounds (as in lbs.) a measurement of weight

According to Wikipedia, "pounds" originally and still may refer to force (weight). However the "pound avoirdupois", avoirdupois being the system used in the United States, is defined to be a measure of mass.

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?

Escape velocity from the moon is 2.4 km/s. I don't think that merely weighing 1/6th as much as you do on earth would allow you to launch yourself at that speed. The astronauts would be able to leap even farther than they could in the bulky spacesuits, though.

Re:Sci-Fi correlation

[X0563511]

To be worn in space, the BioSuit must deliver close to one-third the pressure exerted by Earth's atmosphere, or about 30 kPa (kilopascals). The current prototype suit exerts about 20 KPa consistently, and the researchers have gotten new models up to 25 to 30 KPa. This isn't just a proof-of-concept, this is a real prototype under testing.

Re:300 lbs

[Belacgod]

Really, stone should be a unit for measuring drug potency.

Re:PHYSICS: Why skin tight may be a bad idea

[crashfrog]

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.