This has been an issue for decades, largely as a result of lack of competition, when NASA stove piped the EMUs to JSC and Hamilton Standard, instead of having more innovation from Vykukal and Webbon at Ames.
34 thoughts on “The Spacesuit Mess”
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“NASA is cognizant of the importance of the all-female milestone, Schierholz added…”
Why is this important?
And if the astronauts bodies ‘stretch’, why is a SMALLER suit the answer?
And why are suits (which would seem to be, at least, life-safety equipment) not available for all astronauts?
If I had to guess, I’d guess her breasts got smaller due to fluid redistribution in microgravity, thus the need for a smaller “shirt.”
At the present time, ISS crew personal spacesuits are the ones they wore coming up in the Soyuz. These are not EVA-capable, they just protect you from the fate of the Soyuz-11 crew. The Extravehicular Mobility Units are kept at the ISS, where crew mix and match components to make a fit. It does seem foolish not to have enough pieces to cover all possible combinations.
I think the Russian EVA suits are more generic, and have adjuster straps to lengthen/shorten the arms and legs. This suit is also unibody, and you get in through a hatch in the back. Supposedly a lot less flexible than the US EMU. The two types of EVA suits are also airlock-type specific, iirc, so you use a Russian suit to exit the Russian segment and a US suit to exit the US segment.
Great planning from NASA…..time to deorbit the ISS
“The two types of EVA suits are also airlock-type specific, iirc, so you use a Russian suit to exit the Russian segment and a US suit to exit the US segment.” Really? When we built this thing we couldn’t negotiate simple interoperability with airlocks. I’m not an aerospace engineer, but it seems like requiring all airlocks meet dimensions for astronauts in all suits is the obvious thing you specify way up front.
It turns out I was partially mistaken about that. The two Russian airlocks in the Zvezda and Pirs modules can only accommodate Russian Orlan spacesuits, but the Quest airlock on the US segment can accommodate both US EMUs and Orlans. Prior to the arrival of Quest, US EMUs could only be used when the Shuttle airlock was available. Pretty much the ROS and USOS are seperate space stations docked at the interface between Zarya and PMA-1, whence Russian claims they can undock their segment any time they want, complicated by the fact that the US paid for Zarya and owns it.
The Russian segment was basically built of repurposed Mir-2 modules.
When NASA is the only customer, the opportunity for competition is limited but now that more customers are on the horizon, we will see more options.
Yes, competition for a market of multiple buyers will bring improvements. Personally, I want to see Dava Newman’s idea of a “Paint-on” skinsuit tried by some non-NASA group, while the Astronaut Office gets over its shuddering fits about skinsuits. Then people needing high productivity in spaceflight EVA can update from the last 60 years of pressurized articulated balloons that NASA perpetuates.
“Yes, competition for a market of multiple buyers will bring improvements. Personally, I want to see Dava Newman’s idea of a “Paint-on” skinsuit tried by some non-NASA group, while the Astronaut Office gets over its shuddering fits about skinsuits.”
You beat me to the punch Tom…though not by much! Maybe once Musk’s starts delivering space-tourist customers to one of Robert Bigelow’s inflatable habitats in orbit things might change:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigelow_Expandable_Activity_Module
It would also force NASA to take notice; big difference between NASA’s 4 million dollar suits vs mechanical counter pressure suits probably orders of magnitude cheaper being used by numerous space tourists.
How about this: no suit!
People have climbed Mt Everest without oxygen. That is 4.9 psi total, a little less than 1 psi pure oxygen equivalent.
The maximum safe lung pressure is 1.42 psi over ambient.
Therefore, it should be at least possible to have a human wear just a scuba mouthpiece and breath pure oxygen. Not healthy for the long term, but for an emergency having a 1.2 psi oxygen bottle and a mouthpiece would likely be enough to survive!
And since we are very selective for our astronauts anyway, lets choose that tiny subset of the population that both needs less oxygen (native Andeans and Himalayans) and have massively overbuilt chests so they can handle a higher pressure gradient (olympic bench press people).
No shirt, no shoes, none needed!
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=mt+everest+pressure
https://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/maximum-lung-pressure.1315/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_high_altitude_on_humans
The solution is the mechanical counter pressure suit. The most recent variant of is Dava Newman’s “bio-suit”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_counterpressure_suit#MIT_Bio-Suit
They work by applying mechanical pressure directly to the body similar to a body stocking; the only pressurized parts are the helmet that covers the head and attached to the body of the suit with some kind of o-ring. Don’t have any specific data on cost but my understanding is that it would likely be order of magnitude cheaper than the current “balloon” type suits that have dominated spacesuit designs for decades.
Last I heard, mechanical counterpressure suits need a fairly close fit, and are a pain to get on and off quickly.
You think you can quickly don and doff the current EMU?
“You think you can quickly don and doff the current EMU?”
Yuppers. And in addition to much lower cost it is far more user friendly as far as the level of exertion it takes to use on EVA work; something like ~20% more effort in astronaut movement vs something like ~400% more effort for a traditional balloon suit. It is also more resistant to tearing; if it tears there is no catastrophic depressurization risk. Only the helmet is vulnerable to that unlike the entire suit for a traditional balloon suit.
The last time I checked (years ago), gloves were a major issue. Not that gloves in the current suits are all that great.
I also think there’s a difficulty with the armpits because the curvature is reverse that of the rest of the body.
Sounds interesting. How well do they protect against radiation compared to the current suits?
Radiation isn’t an issue with LEO. Different suits are needed for lunar surface, for a number of reasons.
On a related note, if we’re going to put astronauts on the moon in 5 years (not holding my breath – I’ve heard this before), they’ll need to develop new EVA suits. The original Apollo suits are a good starting point for a design. They were expensive and heavy but they worked. Replace the batteries and electronics with new technology to start. Make careful use of new materials but don’t let that overly delay progress.
Put today’s NASA in charge and they’ll spend 10 years and a billion dollars with nothing to show for it but a bunch of papers and PowerPoint slide presentations. Instead, have NASA write the requirements and let industry prodce solutions.
Don’t need to do EVA to land on the moon.
True, but you do need to do EVA to put money in the parking meter once you’re there.
I once thought up a potential fix for some of the suit joint forces. Measure the torque vs angle curve and then cut a correcting cam that is pulled by a steel cable attached to a linear spring, a gas spring, or a pneumatic cylinder. Of course the joint would probably need a solid pivot somewhere as a reference and to keep the applied force from trying to shorten the suit.
That should help on single-axis joints if it’s not too bulky. With more design work, the same approach of using cables and cams might work for some multi-axis joints, and it might even scale down enough to do fingers.
Using pneumatic cylinders instead of springs would make the suit tolerant of a wide range of pressure differentials, and it could be viewed as a round-about way to make a constant-volume joint, where the cam is equalizing the dVolume/dtheta curve in the bend against the constant dVolume/displacement of a linear pneumatic cylinder. So given the maximum change in volume across a joint’s range of motion, you use a pneumatic cylinder with the same volume and use the cam to handling the curve fit, applying a countering torque or force to the joint or limb.
For “EVA” on the moon (or in high earth orbit say GSO) you could used the discussed mechanical counter pressure suit with an addition. You can wear basically a type of body armor over the suit; useful for added protection from micro meteor & radiation protection. Marshal T. Savage discussed this point years ago in his book:
“The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage”
https://www.amazon.com/Millennial-Project-Colonizing-Marshall-1994-08-03/dp/B01FKUT7U8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PR5D5MO4RURD&keywords=marshall+t+savage&qid=1553639441&s=gateway&sprefix=mashall+t+savage%2Caps%2C175&sr=8-1
You don’t need a suit to land on the moon. But if you ever intend on going outside your spacecraft, you do. That’s an extra vehicular activity if there ever was one.
The stated goal was landing, not walking around…
That’s not even up to the level of flags and footprints. If that’s the goal, don’t bother.
NASA will spend that 10 years and billion bucks on writing the specs…
NASA isn’t going to put anyone on any other planet. Private industry will. Let them figure it out, they’ll actually have skin in the game (no pun intended).
“The last time I checked (years ago), gloves were a major issue. Not that gloves in the current suits are all that great.”
From my posted link about the Bio-suit:
“As mechanical counter-pressure has proven difficult for small joints such as those in the hands, the BioSuit baseline design uses gas-filled gloves and boots, in addition to a gas-filled helmet.”
Each suit has to be custom designed for each wearer; believe they use laser scanning/measurements for that (also from posted link)
“I also think there’s a difficulty with the armpits because the curvature is reverse that of the rest of the body.”
From the same link:
“A number of problems also turned up, primarily related to the problem of keeping the suit in strong mechanical contact at every point on the body. Concavities or small folds in the fabric could lead to fluid pooling in the gaps; the groin area proved extremely difficult to tailor successfully. To correct this, small pads of polyurethane foam were inserted into concavities and were successful in most problem.”
I think the best way to do a mechanical pressure suit would be to make it modular with the actual mechanical pressure garment worn as a “base layer ” with different outer suits for different missions, one orbital EVA, one planetary for Moon or Mars, and maybe nothing more than a simple coverall for in spacecraft use. Seems like potential cost savings in not having to have multiple suits, as well as the pressure garment wouldn’t have to resigned to deal with environmental conditions like moon dust. Plus with an outer layer the suit wouldn’t be so, um revealing.
Thanks. I remember the early suits used pads to turn the body into a convex hull; pressurized gloves seem reasonable. It really seems like pressurized shorts would also be required, but so far that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I can see why two female astronauts would object to going out with identical Orlan suits. The cheapest answer, IMHO, would be to provide one of them with a nice Orlan-cotton blend, appropriate for spring, and the other with some cute Nylon stockings to go over her Orlan suit.
But that’s just me…
You’re being facetious but you bring up an important point: virtue signaling is foolish, and doubly so in dangerous situations. It makes the spacewalk look like it had no valid reason to occur, that it is merely a stunt. It is crap like this that makes people wonder why NASA exists at all.
A question I have is, do you really needs a “spacesuit” im microgravity? Why not just some kind of “pod,” with multiple RMS operated by internal controls (and, therefore, teleoperable as well). I’m guessing you’d want anthropomorphic spacesuits on planetary surfaces (anyplace with palpable gravity, such as large moons and asteroids) for operations you can’t do by RMS from inside your comfy rover. Plus if it were me, I’d sure want to get out and walk around a bit!
In addition to current balloon suits and yet to be perfected mechanical counterpressure skinsuits, consideration should be given to hardsuits. I remember the original “programming” issue of lining up the joints once you’re inside, but with a properly designed robotic exoskeleton with anthropomorphic joints, that’s probably not an issue anymore.
“A question I have is, do you really needs a “spacesuit” im microgravity? Why not just some kind of “pod,” with multiple RMS operated by internal controls (and, therefore, teleoperable as well). ” Good idea, and fairly staple in science fiction. Pros would be better protection for astronauts as well as such a pod could be pressurized to the same pressure as the station(IIRC the suit pressure is much lower than the station so astronauts must a significant amount of time pre breathing oxygen to avoid the bends.) Cons would be I don’t know if you make the “feel ” thru robot arms good enough for fiber work. And I assume it would either take up a docking port or require a very large airlock to get it out. “Open the pod bay doors HAL;)).
How about a compromise? A hard-shell exoskeleton. You know, “a suit you just wear”, but optimized for performing maintenance in vacuum.
The primary issue with exoskeletons today is power density; but, with EVAs lasting only a few hours, is that such a big deal in space? Heck, I bet you could rig some sort of charging port on the Arm.