MIT Works On Mars Space Suit

An anonymous reader writes in with a story about MIT's work on space suits to be used by Mars astronauts. "When we send the first humans to Mars we will need to get the most scientific data in the smallest amount of time while not exhausting our astronauts in the process. Dava J. Newman has been working on a 'biosuit' that's designed to do just that....Dava’s suit would be a huge leap forward in terms of construction as well. They’ve enlisted the expertise of Dainese, an Italian manufacturer of motorcycle racing 'leathers'—leather and carbon-fiber suits designed to protect racers traveling at up to 200 mph. The suit would be a degree safer than current space suits. While a puncture or scrape in a traditional space suit would cause a dramatic decrease in pressure and would be traumatic, even deadly, the 'biosuit' could be patched with a high-tech ace bandage. The wearer would wrap it around the punctured area to stop the leak almost instantly. Pressure loss would be minimal and the astronaut would be able to continue working and finish his or her task. "

Comments

Mars does have air pressure

[CRCulver]

In his Mars trilogy beginning with Red Mars , Kim Stanley Robinson spent quite some time musing on suits for exploring the surface of Mars. I found it interesting that, although Mars has a very thin atmosphere compared to Earth, the presence of any atmosphere at all makes it much easier to design a flexible, comfortable suit than for the landings on the moon or spacewalks.

Re:Mars does have air pressure

[Anonymous Coward]

Your skin is pretty resilient to pressure, so you can survive (briefly) in a vacuum if necessary. The scene in Titan A.E. where the protagonist busts out the cockpit window and uses a fire extinguisher for propulsion to flying through space without a spacesuit is at least somewhat realistic and could in theory actually happen... assuming you could get into an air lock under a minute or so and get it to quick repressurize so you could catch a breath of air. You would be in pain, but still be alive.

You can survive for 1, maybe 2 minutes without lasting damage. But you lose consciousness in 10-15 seconds, because your lungs are void of oxygen. Even though "used" blood returning to your lungs still has ~75% oxygenated, that oxygen leaves your blood (and gets sucked out your windpipe). Not at all like exhaling and holding your empty breath, because there the residual air in your lungs always has at least enough oxygen to be equilibrium with your blood, so it recirculates at low oxygen content instead of being stripped to nothing.

Basically, on the surface of Mars, you could in theory run between two different buildings a few dozen meters apart without a space suit using the same principle. In an emergency, there at least would be a high probability of survival even if it isn't something recommended. It would be sort of like swimming a few dozen meters underwater and holding your breath the whole time.

No, because there is no holding your breath against 3-4 psi -- the air will be sucked from your lungs. You were evolved (and/or designed by FSM) to deal with only neutral or positive external pressure, because there's no situation on Earth (before the industrial revolution) you can experience negative external pressure. (Since then, we have coming up from a dive with pressurized air, losing pressurization in an aircraft at altitude, or the one that made me say industrial revolution -- pneumatic caisson accidents. But these all, except aircraft at extreme height, leave you with a remnant of oxygen-containing air, preventing the prompt hypoxia explained above.)

Close, but no cigar.

[Anonymous Coward]

While an easily patchable suit seems like a great idea, what we really need is a suit that patches itself. Astronauts may not be able to see or reach the site of a suit puncture, in which case their screwed. A suit that has some sort of self-sealing properties or maybe with a thin layer of that green goop used to seal bicycle tires from punctures would be a better idea IMO.