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Next-Gen Spacesuits
ambermichelle writes "Outer space is a hostile environment for humans, characterized by an airless vacuum, thermal extremes, ionizing radiation and speeding micro meteoroids. Less well-known are the dangers posed by long-term exposure to microgravity or zero-g conditions, which over time severely saps the strength of astronauts' muscles and bones. Several researchers are working to develop new spacesuit designs that could help counteract these threats as well as avoid some of the familiar drawbacks of current spacesuit models such as bulk, weight and rigidity."
was contained in the bladder in one boot in the Apollo pressure-suit designs. I wonder what they'll do for these elastic suits.
But we won't do it till we spend a lot more time on earth doing the grunt work (engineering and thinking) instead of spending billions on half baked manned missions to nowhere worthwhile.
While I agree to a point, you actually have to eventually do these things in order to see how they work.
Consider Apollo. We didn't just fire up the ol' Saturn V and head to the Moon. You're right that there was lots of design and testing done on Earth. But eventually we flew Apollo 7 in orbit around Earth in order to test the CSM. We flew around the Moon on Apollo 8 to test those procedures (as well as beat them Rooskis to the Moon). Apollo 9 tested the LEM and the extraction procedures in Earth orbit and Apollo 10 tested them in Lunar orbit (as an aside, I have to admit that if I was on the Apollo 10 mission and everything was working out, I'd be tempted to yell "Fuck you, Neil!" into my radio and land on the Moon. What's NASA gonna do?) Not to mention the various unmanned launches before Apollo 7.
Were all those "half-baked" missions of the Apollo program a waste? Are you saying we should have just shot astronauts at the Moon until one of them made it?
(as an aside, I have to admit that if I was on the Apollo 10 mission and everything was working out, I'd be tempted to yell "Fuck you, Neil!" into my radio and land on the Moon. What's NASA gonna do?)
Watch as you die on the moon because the ascent stage lacked the fuel needed to return the Lunar Module to the Command Module from the surface of the moon.