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NASA's First New Spacesuit In 20 Years Is Its Own Airlock
Zothecula writes "The current U.S. space suit used by NASA is a dinosaur. Designed in 1992, it was only ever intended to be used by crews aboard the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS). That may have been good enough in the days of 14 kps modems, but with eyes turning increasingly toward missions to the Moon, Mars and the asteroids, space explorers need something better. That's why NASA is designing its first new suit in twenty years. Developed by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems (AES), the Z-1 prototype space suit currently undergoing vacuum testing at the Johnson Space Center is a wearable laboratory of new technology. And it's a hatchback."
Um.... FTW!
yeah.
and beyond!
20 years old and it is a dinosaur? You young'ins are obsessed with the Shiny.
Leaving a spacesuit docked on a ship and now having nothing but the structural integrity of that suit between a crew and hard vacuum doesn't sound like a particularly bright idea.
As much as I value the space program, I am questioning the need for designing a new space suit.
Congress constantly targets NASA for budget cuts...
With its limited budget NASA seems more interesting in robotic flights instead of manned flights. They seem to be using more things like the Mars Rover.
We do not even have a space fleet right now. The shuttles have been mothballed and sold off as museum pieces and we now send people to the space station by buying them passage on soviet vessels launched out of Kazakhstan.
The future of manned space flight seems to be private industry in the US. How come NASA is spending the money designing suits instead of the future space companies?
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DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
NASA outsourced this particular suit design to Hasbro, who then produced it under a license from Disney/Pixar.
Was hoping for something more like this: http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit/
14.4k
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I believe the Soviets had a "hatch-back" earlier. I expect it makes suiting up quite a bit faster and simpler.
Green and UGLY and looks like a worm Going to be joke fodder
Nobody cares what the damn thing looks like; it's meant to protect, not impress.
I hear you, but did they have to make it look like the hunchback of Notre-dame
If my comment didn't sound as good in your head as it did in mine, then I guess we all know who's to blame
It doesn't seem that way. These suits can act a higher pressure which allows them to dock to the spacecraft in the first place. So they must be sturdier.
Also, it's not like when the suit leaves that the ship is exposed to space. There must be an additional "hatch" that is closed around the suit opening to allow it to leave.
So when docked you have the structural integrity of the suit itself (life support backpack plus suit plus helmet) and the structural integrity of the "hatch" that is not mentioned.
It's not a full blown traditional airlock because there is not a separate space that has to have the pressure equalized before you can enter the space craft. In a way it is a mini-airlock because you will still need to equalize that small space in between the hatch and the suit.
The greatest advantage to this is speed. No pre-breathing and cycle time in a big airlock. You could be out in space in minutes it sounds like, or less.
...the government pays 3 times as much for private business to provide half the service that was being provided, and a few Anglo-Saxon guys pocket the rest of the cash.
Shouldn't that be the hatchback of Notre-dame?
When I saw this, my first thought was that it looked a lot like suits that sci-fi moviemakers have imagined over the years.
To infinity and beyond! (Is it just me, or have they actually built Buzz Lightyear?)
The greatest advantage to this is speed. No pre-breathing and cycle time in a big airlock. You could be out in space in minutes it sounds like, or less.
The other great advantage is that one person should be able to put on their own suit - now, it takes substantial help from a partner.
You also avoid tracking anything that gets onto the suit into the vehicle with these things. The Apollo crews can tell you how big a deal that is for a mission of any duration, and it looks like Mars dust is if anything worse.
Manned space exploration isn't funded because we need to. It is funded because we want to. It is basically a fancier version of the Blue Angels. Mars rovers can look as unaesthetic as you want. But an astronaut, who theoretically could be fighting giant octopuses and pirates in space needs to look right. NASA should really talk to Blizzard or Bioware about how to make astronauts look like Space Marines.
That's a common myth, the crew cabin was considerably sturdier since it was a pressure vessel keeping the atmosphere inside the crew cabin. What was "tinfoil" were the mylar thermal covers on the outside of the descent stage.
No no no, we're talking about a spacesuit here. :P
Accoring to Buz Aldrin, the panels were thin enough that they would pop during presurization and go 'bongggg...' - like an oil can.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They're fines, not dust! Calling fines dust is like calling dust gravel!
Now they have a new space suite, they must travel ;-).
There's wind erosion on Mars so the dust over there is pretty smooth... nothing like the jagged nasty Moon stuff.
1. wasnt this on Top Gear last year? when james may drove around the lunar rover they're never going to actually use? pretty sure it was.
2. the phrase 'rear entry spacesuit' is fucking hiLARious.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
"It does seem that the few private companies are making more progress in 5 years than NASA can in 15"
Private companies are not even at Gemini level; that's about NASA's 45 years ago, so I'd say you are a bit overenthusiastic, don't you think so?
The atmosphere inside was pure oxygen at 0.2 bar, allowing the walls of the LEM to be very thin. Still, more like an oil drum than like tinfoil.
It made me think of the film Andromeda Strain (1969), but while googlising for a picture, I found this 1954 image from a nuclear facility.
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/tail-of-hot-suit-serves-as-entrance/
Yes, these have 'tails', but the climbing-in-through-the-back part is there.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
"Man has no fashion sense and if he can get away wearing the same shirt everyday, he will. ;)"
Indeed, I'm he, I order 25 black shirts every couple of months and hence I always know what to wear, while my wife struggles each evening what to wear the next day.
I can do without that.
I order 25 black shirts every couple of months and hence I always know what to wear
I knew Steve Jobs wasn't dead!
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I order 25 black shirts every couple of months and hence I always know what to wear
You are aware that there are things called washing machines? You don't actually need to wear clothes until they smell then throw them away.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Two thoughts come to my mind on the color. First, green could be the only color this fabric comes in at the moment. It might be some industrial material used in manufacturing, and was ordered for testing to see if it would work. If proven to work, they will then worry about color and style of the suit. My other thought was that this is a safety feature. If the suit is being designed for use on the Moon or Mars, you might want a highly visible color should you need to search for a lost astronaut.
The low res. images don't help. I really want to see closeup photos/video of this new docking hatch. It might make the suit look ugly, but it sure does make it more versatile.
I am not going to doubt his word, so it presumably happened, but it is also bullshit. NASA has plenty of rocket research going on. Right now, for example, NASA is testing the J2X rocket for the SLS at Stennis. If you look at the link, you will see considerably better facilities than a hanger in a field.
NASA is a big organization, with lots of parts, and it is certainly conceivable that some center sent somebody inexperienced to see what was going on at Armadillo, but if those were real rocket people, I suspect what they were doing was closer to industrial espionage than to basic education.
NASA should really talk to Blizzard or Bioware about how to make astronauts look like Space Marines.
I dunno about that, it looks like they're already well on their way towards that.
Slap a large drill on the hand, and NASA could have their astronauts dressed like Big Daddys.
No, the greatest advantage is that you can be sure the thing is air tight *before* anybody gets in to it. Checking for damage just became a whole lot safer!
"Never Give Up! Never Surrender!"
Oh, wrong movie...
"To Infinity... And Beyond!"
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"oil-canning" (that sound) was normal, and the LEMs walls did it. It costs an automaker a fortune to prevent "oil-canning" on hoods and hatches, it wasn't a concern on the LEM.
The walls were so thin that workers damaged them (even holed them) with their safety shoes. After delays due to the repairs, it became a work-order to remove shoes when working inside the nearly finished LEMs. The cover of the ascent engine was really vulnerable. IIRC it was the first production use of chemically-etched sheet metal in the aerospace business. BTW, Grumman made the skin so thin because they were under the greatest pressure to cut weight.
Yes, this extremely thin metal was "stronger" when under tension due to internal pressurization, but it was still ridiculously thin for terrestrial purposes.
Kelly, Thomas J. Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module. Washington [D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001]
Woods, W. David. How Apollo Flew to the Moon. New York: Springer Verlag, 2008. Ebook (Kindle).
The tool's girlfriend?
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