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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
(If you actually need Internet Explorer, now, then you've got an even bigger problem)
From looking at the concept, I'd make a SWAG order of magnitude estimate of $2M for the "per suit" recurring cost. Wouldn't be surprised if that is as high as $10M, though, especially by 2012.
Considering the cost of one F-22 Raptor ($62Gig NRE, $140Meg recurring), I think it's quite affordable. We could buy just one less F-22 and it would pay for an adequate supply of Lunar suits.
I can see the fnords!
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.