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NASA Awards Contract For Spacesuit of the Future
Guillermo brings news that NASA has awarded a contract for the development of the next generation of space suits for future use by astronauts in the Constellation program. The contract calls for two different levels of protection; a flexible, lightweight model for operations inside vehicles and stations, and a tougher, bulkier model built off the first for use on the moon. We've discussed spacesuit design (and what happens without them) in the past.
"Suits and support systems will be needed for as many as four astronauts on moon voyages and as many as six space station travelers. For short trips to the moon, the suit design will support a week's worth of moon walks. The system also must be designed to support a significant number of moon walks during potential six-month lunar outpost expeditions. In addition, the spacesuit and support systems will provide contingency spacewalk capability and protection against the launch and landing environment, such as spacecraft cabin leaks."
Space suit of the past more like!
Seriously, come back when we have sexy space suits!
--Free Playstation 3, XBox 360 and Nintendo Wii
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
what happens in them suits you know when one gets an itch?
Seriously, why spend all the money to design a new space suit, when all they can come up with is what we already have. Same bubble shaped head. Same giant backpack.
NASA managed to waste several million dollars, and paid someone to give us what we already had. Oh, but I guess the artists drawings give it a pretty blue color...
Doesn't that look an awful lot like the Major Matt Mason suits from the 70's? Maybe they had space flight and the Moon vehicles right way back then. Can't wait to see the crawler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Matt_Mason
Why not make it look like a Star Fleet uniform from TNG? Captain has four filled dots, 1st officer has three, etc. And a communicator that you sometimes have to touch in order to speak, and other times not, for who knows what reasons.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Which is the shit (sorry), why was this the first think I thought of...
Gozer: The Choice is made!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Whoa! Ho! Ho! Whoa-oa!
Gozer: The Traveller has come!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Nobody choosed anything!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Did you choose anything?
Dr. Egon Spengler: No.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [to Winston] Did YOU?
Winston Zeddemore: My mind is totally blank.
Dr. Peter Venkman: *I* didn't choose anything...
Dr Ray Stantz: I couldn't help it. It just popped in there.
Dr. Peter Venkman: [angrily] What? *What* "just popped in there?"
Dr Ray Stantz: I... I... I tried to think...
Dr. Egon Spengler: LOOK!
Dr Ray Stantz: No! It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What is it?
Dr Ray Stantz: It CAN'T be!
Dr. Peter Venkman: What did you DO, Ray?
Winston Zeddemore: Oh, shit!
Dr Ray Stantz: [somberly] It's the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
Like arts? Like cheesy little Indie mags? Check out www.artwerkmag.com, and don't laugh at the bad coding please.
(If you actually need Internet Explorer, now, then you've got an even bigger problem)
No Mars suit ? For shame.
$300 million for a spacesuit? Seriously? You know the first person to try it on is going to tear a big hole in it. Do'h!
Affordable Health Coverage
Are you kidding? It's clearly an evolutionary precursor to a storm trooper suit
Gaaah, I actually wanted to know who'd been awarded it, and I needed to RTFA to find out..
"The subcontractors to Oceaneering are Air-Lock Inc. of Milford, Conn., David Clark Co. of Worcester, Mass., Cimarron Software Services Inc. of Houston, Harris Corporation of Palm Bay, Fla., Honeywell International Inc. of Glendale, Ariz., Paragon Space Development Corp. of Tucson, Ariz., and United Space Alliance of Houston."
--- Band: Joey Ultra
"function detectBrowserClass(modern)" does stuff like "if (nAgent.indexOf('Netscape') !=-1) { var strIndex = nAgent.indexOf('Netscape'); this.version = nAgent.substring((strIndex + 9), (strIndex + 12)); this.browser = 'netscape';}" and "var detectBrowser = new detectBrowserClass({'opera': 9,'safari': 2,'firefox': 1.5,'ie': 6});".
Why on earth are you even looking at "Netscape" if it's not in your class list?
Your test is going to fail on any non-Firefox Gecko-based browsers, Shiira or other non-Safari Webkit-based browsers, any version of Ubrowser (even the new Webkit-based one under development), and so on. You need to at least base it on the gecko or webkit version, not the distribution name.
But, really, you're better off just going "if it's not IE, or it's IE 5.5 or later, Just Do It".
It would be nice to see some of the more recent advances in materials science, of which there have been many since the 1970s when the last prototypes were built, applied to the Space Activity Suit concept. It really does offer some rather compelling advantages over the rigid body and fixed volume suits currently in use.
What wonderful times we live.
* Sorry. The post kinda fell into the pattern and I couldn't help myself. I'll get my coat.
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
At least we've finally come to realize that astronauts do in fact need a cup on the outside of their gear, just like Storm Troopers.
There's a 68.71% chance you're right.
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosuit> Current versions of portions the BioSuit have consistently reached 25 kPa, and the team is currently aiming for 30 kPa for a baseline design. Also from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacesuit#Operating_pressure
Operating pressure
Generally, to supply enough oxygen for respiration, a spacesuit using pure oxygen must have a pressure of about 4.7 psi (32.4 kPa), equal to the 3 psi (20.7 kPa) partial pressure of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere at sea level, plus 40 torr (5.3 kPa) CO2 and 47 torr (6.3 kPa) water vapor pressure, both of which must be subtracted from the alveolar pressure to get alveolar oxygen partial pressure in 100% oxygen atmospheres, by the alveolar gas equation.[1] The latter two figures add to 87 torr (11.6 kPa, 1.7 psi), which is why many modern spacesuits do not use 3 psi, but 4.7 psi (this is a slight overcorrection, as alveolar partial pressures at sea level are not a full 3 psi, but a bit less). In spacesuits that use 3 psi, the astronaut gets only 3 - 1.7 = 1.3 psi (9 kPa) of oxygen, which is about the alveolar oxygen partial pressure attained at an altitude of 6100 ft (1860 m) above sea level. This is about 78% of normal sea level pressure, about the same as pressure in a commercial passenger jet aircraft, and is the realistic lower limit for safe ordinary space suit pressurization which allows reasonable work capacity. Close... but no cigar.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
For those who haven't yet read the article, it breaks down like this.
The first configuration is lightweight and flexible - giving just the protection one needs to survive and operate in a vacuum. It is great for closed environments where there's less risk of dust contamination, cosmic radiation, etc. It is commonly referred to as the "normal suit"
The second type is known as the "mobile suit" - it provides substantially more protection in harsh environments, plus a comprehensive mobility package. It will work as an outer layer covering the normal suit.
Bow-ties are cool.
Where the suits are slim, flexible, with lots of gold trim, and sport snazzy built-in guns.
And the suits for women are, inexplicably, 80% transparent.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.