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Creating Budget Space Suits For the Private Space Industry
Zothecula writes "Although the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was unmanned during its recent first flight to the International Space Station, the success of that mission marked a huge step toward future crewed commercial space flights. SpaceX, of course, isn't the only player in this newly-forming industry – companies such as Virgin Galactic, Boeing, and Blue Origin are also hoping to take paying customers on rocket rides. However, while a lot of attention has been paid to the spacecraft themselves, one has to wonder what those private-sector astronauts will be wearing. Expensive NASA space suits, perhaps? Not if Ted Southern and Nikolay Moiseev have anything to say about it."
I think most astronauts would be ok with a cheap suit made in the maldives or vietnam.
After all, there's no need to waste money on designer outfits when all that's really important is a good vacuum seal and a few life support functions.
Rarely are the two the same thing.
Space suits are bulky and annoying. All they protect you against is loss of pressure; they can't provide any protection worth mentioning against impact or fire. So what exactly is the point?
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Choose two.
More importantly, they have to determine how valuable the payload is. At NASA the value approaches infinte, as opposed to say, coal miners or automobile passengers, where the value is somewhere in the 6 to 7 figure range. A great suit adds one more tolerance to the fault chain. Otherwise, you're just looking at a g-suit to make it through launch - source it from military contractors without the red tape for a grand or two. TFA, otoh, looks to be talking about actual EVA-capable suits.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
..."A billion Dollars worth of hardware, held aloft by a five Dollar breaker switch."
I don't remember where I heard/read it, but it made me laugh.
But seriously, are you going to go with the lowest bidder? I would want the job doing by someone who knows what they're doing, not by someone who's desperate to close a contract. NASA have, demonstrably, several decades of experience in manned spaceflight, and of the equipment and systems used, and the companies to go to to fulfill their requirements. I'd rather go to Thiokol for rockets than Estes. FFD can keep their cabin suits - which are not designed for hard vacuum - and I'll stick with an Orlan MK or an EMU.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Space suits are a textile product, the same as a bullet proof vest, or a tommy hillfiger T-shirt.
Currently, they are expensive and rightfully so:
The number of paying customers is small.
The number of units sold is small.
The batch sizes for materials are small.
The number of places that make them is small.
The number of people that design and build/test them is small.
However, space suits, like any other commodity that could theoretically benefit from mass manufacture, stand to benefit greatly from the network effects of said mass manufacture.
Should commercial spaceflight take off as a new billion dollar industry, the situation with space suits changes.
The number of paying customers increases. May eventually become large.
The number of units sold increases, and may become large.
To meet the increased demand, the batch sizes for material grows.
The increased demand, coupled with high initial prices means ripe territory for commercial competitors, which drives the prices down.
The increased number of commercial competitors means an increase in the available choices of offering, which means that the numbers of people designing suits goes up.
Taken together, the price of suits will drop significantly, assuming artificial market pressures, like protectionism, market collusion, or innecessary (for the function of the product) regulations are not enacted.
From the perspective of somebody that might want to be a space colonist some day, the prospect of multiple sellers competing for my purchase dollar with quality offerings is very attractive, not the least of which being the lower personal cost of purchase; it also means a lower ticket price, since costs of operating the space transport are reduced, and increased options for specific types of suit fr specific tasks. If I am going to take a job building a commercial spce station doing evas bucking rivets, I want a durable, work-friendly suit. Not a fragile emergency support suit. Multiple suppliers with multiple products means I can find a better offering for my personal needs.
As such, I strongly desire a market flooded with specialty, commercially made suits.
that's already happening.
but the stuff that comes out of places like Somalia is tagged "made in China"...
...will be wearing."
Flip-flops, baggy shorts, and t-shirts, init? They are going to be tourists, after all.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Lets face it, if the shit hits the fan, you are probably dead, space suit or not.
Be seeing you...
Cheap as in dirt-cheap isn't the way to go when you have space tourists willing to blow a normal person's annual salary on a joyride. It would be better to design as suit that looks good, while functioning well. I'm think along the lines of Dava Newman's prototype Bio-Suit, a sleek looking design that doesn't make the presumably fit space traveller looking like the Teletubbies or the Pillsbury Dough boy.
The Bio-Suit is sleek because it is supposed to work on "mechanical counter-pressure" rather than through simple air pressure. That's the theory anyway. Here's hoping she and her team work out the kinks.
Can anybody explain to me why people insist on building pressurized space suits? Working in them seems to be pure pain (say goodbye to your fingernails). Unpressurized suits have successfully been tested as early as 1969 (www.elasticspacesuit.com).
spacesuits also protect against radiation, extreme termperature, and small micrometeorioids.