12 thoughts on “Commercial Spacesuits”

  1. At what point will they have sufficient confidence in Dragon to not require them?

    I think, post Challenger, never. So long as there is a chance, however small, that a depress event could occur and crew still be returned safely; then you need a pressure suit.

    Also, unless Dragon is extremely good at resisting MMOD, I’m not sure if you should have sufficient confidence in Dragon not having a survivable depress event.

    I hate having to write this, because I know that most of the time, these suits are just ballast, even in a situation in which they were designed to save lives. If you have a depress, you likely have other problems that are much worse.

    1. The solution for rapid depress is a tank of air and a putty patch that’s tossed toward the hole. At some point, they’ll reach the point at which they’ll accept the risk, to avoid the hassle of the suits.

      2. Seriously, you’ll have to invent that putty repair. SSP spent millions developing its tile putty repair, and I’m sure someone will say it isn’t sufficient. I’m not sure if the applicator and the extra tank is less mass than a suit, but they’ll have more utility for the likely more common small hole loss of pressure to be expected during long space ventures.

        Also, who can survive in a space suit for a Mars return?

        I hope you understand I get your points, Rand. Still, I don’t think the culture, even private, is ready to go without such suits. I don’t see Dragon being the first.

          1. The problem was a bit more about curing in micro-gravity. How do you get the putty to stay put? Which I thought was interesting because of the vacuum environment.

          2. In this case, the putty would presumably go to the right place, and then stay there, from the internal pressure. It wouldn’t need to cure to seal. You could probably literally use superputty.

    2. An emergency pressure suit in case of a hull breach could be a lot simpler and lighter that a suit designed for easy movement under pressure.

  2. At what point will they have sufficient confidence in Dragon to not require them?

    What is the point of going to space if you don’t get a fancy suit? They probably wont ever totally get rid of them but they might become more ornamental than utilitarian.

  3. From the Business Insider article: “A site maintained by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory suggests SpaceX’s crewed launch will actually be in January, 2019.”

    I wonder what site they are referring to. nasaspaceflight.com is often misattributed as being maintained by NASA.

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