NASA Testing Lighter Space Suits For Asteroid Work 54
Zothecula writes "Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward. NASA is carrying out initial tests on a new, lighter spacesuit for use by the crew of the Orion spacecraft that is currently under development. The tests are being carried out in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on a modified version of the pumpkin orange suit normally worn by Space Shuttle crews during liftoff and re-entry and is a return to a space suit design of the 1960s."
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Just think how much less budget you have to launch into space. Which requires fewer boosters, which means your budget can be cut!
Re:Lighter suits (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lighter suits (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is the projects take far longer than politicians are in power for - you're looking at easily a decade from conception, design, test and launch. The Mars rovers are an anomaly as they're generally done "on the cheap" just to see what was possible, but it still took a long time to actually plan out and do it all.
And with NASA's budget and goals being at the whim and fart of politicians, well, it can't be helped.
If you ever wonder why NASA spends so much on public relations, that's probably the only thing keeping base funding alive - just having public awareness they exist and that space is interesting means they get some funding.
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You have a really good point. These programs are complex. It is difficult to determine how a change to one part will affect the others. The article discussed the compromises that are needed because of the constraints of the Orion program. I truly hope they can develop a multipurpose product, rather than a crippled one that makes simple tasks more tedious. There is a reason we have both a screwdriver and a hammer in our toolbox.
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I wonder how much cheaper it would be to actually finish some projects as planed
Maybe they can get help from google? I can see it now, NASA labs.
Congress! (Score:1)
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Cheapest might be to learn from the Soviet example where several competing departments tried to come up with an idea or implementation and more optimum solution sort of came out naturally as a result. Given the number of firsts the Soviets had of the USA it might be much faster as well. Funny how the USA has had an almost authoritarian system in place for managing projects in space since the start of NASA and they don't embrace a more free-market approach.
IOW: NASA brass making astronauts dress sluttier (Score:2)
The harsh environment of deep space is no longer an excuse. There's an oblig. Simpsons reference I'm too lazy to look up.
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Good. I hate 'The Simpsons', and any "obligatory" reference to any of its episodes (or even worse, Seinfeld) is an utter waste of electrons. /rant
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Nah think bigger picture. NASA needs to start filming and selling zero-g porn. They'll have a virtual monopoly on the stuff and the adult industry is worth $10+ billion a year. That's twice what NASA spent on space operations in 2011.
And in case you think it's a joke, and not a commentary on how sad it is people would rather invest in seeing money shots than real science, I haz links :
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/659660main_NASA_FY13_Budget_Estimates-508-rev.pdf [nasa.gov]
http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/25 [forbes.com]
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It's probably where they hide the money for the *really* secret projects.
Re:as long as it's sexy it's okay (Score:4, Interesting)
First zero g porn was shot on a private vomit comet. Don't recall the name.
It had to suck, being made up of 22 second zero g shots edited together.
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links or it didn't happen ! ;P
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A lot of that "cross agency support" is NASA picking up the tab for military projects. Yeah, the bottomless money pit of the Pentagon also sucks money out of National Institute of Health, National Science Institute, NOAA, National Weather Service, even the National Park Service.
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Nah think bigger picture. NASA needs to start filming and selling zero-g porn. They'll have a virtual monopoly on the stuff and the adult industry is worth $10+ billion a year. That's twice what NASA spent on space operations in 2011.
And in case you think it's a joke, and not a commentary on how sad it is people would rather invest in seeing money shots than real science, I haz links :
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/659660main_NASA_FY13_Budget_Estimates-508-rev.pdf [nasa.gov]
http://www.forbes.com/2001/05/25/0524porn.html [forbes.com]
(although it is cheering to know that the entire NASA budget is bigger than the porn industry, although I must admit I was a little surprised by the 3 billion spent on "cross agency support" -- what's that about?)
Nah. Russian zero-g porn!
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I was a little surprised by the 3 billion spent on "cross agency support" -- what's that about?)
Probably the layers upon layers of dysfunctional management we are always hearing about. A bigger question is how you spend $600+ on a dead program- The last shuttle flight was in July 2011 but funding continued to 2013. I can understand there will be some costs but you don't need gold-plated tarps to cover a machine that will never fly again.
Return to a space suit design of the 1960s (Score:1)
Yep, NASA is all for a return to the 1960's. The Glory Days.
Spent money like water, came up with the shortest path to "beating them Ruskies"
They never learned to build infrastructure. They never wanted to launch a mission that had any risk. They apparently never read the proverb, "Those who refuse to face failure, need never worry about success."
C'mon, guys. Let's go back to a capsule, water landings, Big Disposable Boosters.
Maybe you should consider trying to reengineer an actual practical shuttle, and
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Do you really have to make a Giant Pert Chart that lists the entire future of the NASA space mission,
1. Walk on the moon
2. ???
3. Profit!
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Re:Return to a space suit design of the 1960s (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA might have been expensive, but they pioneered a lot of things that are used every day, and not just Tang.
One can list hundreds of things that have come from NASA's moon launches and are used in common products these days. LEDs, airplane de-icing systems, fire-resistant materials, and non-destructive stress testing are just starters.
Of course, NASA has become the political whipping boy because it doesn't have immediate ROI. No, sending a robot to Mars might not have dollars rolling in, but the technological hurdles overcome to do the missions are things learned and can be used in the private sector.
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Re:Return to a space suit design of the 1960s (Score:5, Interesting)
"They never learned to build infrastructure. They never wanted to launch a mission that had any risk." It's hard to tell what NASA you are talking about here, NASA in the '60s or NASA in the 2000's? If it was NASA in the 60's then you are wrong. NASA in the 60's was all about risky missions. I personally heard Frank Borman at a conference a few years ago state that when he launched on Apollo 8 he figured that he had a 50% chance of coming back. For lasting infrastructure, the Vehicle Assembly Building and the crawler-transporter at Kennedy were built for the first Saturn V then used through the Space Shuttle program with plans for use by SLS. Same for the engine test stands at Stennis in Mississippi. On the pert charts -- one of the acknowledged major accomplishments of the Apollo Program was the development of a management process to successfully pull off such a gigantic and fast moving program.
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Spent money like water, came up with the shortest path to "beating them Ruskies"
Spend money like Wall Street, come up with the shortest path to "bankrupt the Nation".
That sounds similar to what the government is doing now . . . except we don't have anything to show off for it . . .
So, what is the ideal suit? (Score:2)
The current suits will last for as long as you have air, with waste disposal and food bui
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For short space-walks (under 8 hours), why does the skin need air? Have a suit that's skin-tight (and air tight). It'd keep the pressure without having the bulk and weight of a large air-tight suit. Have cooling/heating lines run in the surface of the skin, like Tron. Then, all you'd need is a helmet attached to the skinsuit.
There has been a fair amount of research on skin suits. One of the downsides is that they have to be individually fitted to each astronaut, but they'd probably be light enough that you could carry six suits for the same mass as one existing suit.
I suspect the big downside is that they've never been tested in space, whereas NASA know their existing suits work.
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For short space-walks (under 8 hours), why does the skin need air? Have a suit that's skin-tight (and air tight). It'd keep the pressure without having the bulk and weight of a large air-tight suit. Have cooling/heating lines run in the surface of the skin, like Tron. Then, all you'd need is a helmet attached to the skinsuit.
There has been a fair amount of research on skin suits. One of the downsides is that they have to be individually fitted to each astronaut, but they'd probably be light enough that you could carry six suits for the same mass as one existing suit.
I suspect the big downside is that they've never been tested in space, whereas NASA know their existing suits work.
The skin doesn't need air, but wouldn't the body have decompression-like symptoms if the static pressure went from 14.7psi to 0? The only solution with a skin-tight suit would be to ratchet up the tightness. This would make putting them on in 0g pretty difficult. Plus when you put it on inside the spacecraft, you would have nearly 14.7psi + suit pressure on the skin. That probably isn't comfortable. Additionally, extra pressure over the body makes it difficult to breathe. Even 2psi is tough- just try
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Would the be a problem with breathing? I mean, literally expanding your chest to inhale if the suit was tight enough to prevent decompression?
Your lungs are designed to work against 15psi. The hard part is preventing them from expanding too much when full of air while your body is in a vacuum, not allowing them to expand at all.
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Filling it with a liquid would not provide any benefit whatsoever vs air, and substantial extra difficulties. Liquid under pressure will exert just as much force on a mask as gas at equal pressure, will squirt out of leaks just as enthusiastically, and with possibly even faster pressure drop due to incompressibility.
If you "pour" a glass of water in space, it will not expand. It will clump and not explosively decompress as a cup of air would. So I'm unclear how you got to the conclusion you did. A leak around a weak seal would result in severe problems with an air-mask, and few (if any) for a water-filled mask.
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A suit that can be warn for longer, but you'd have to go back inside to take breaks for biological reasons should make the suit cheaper and much more maneuverable.
Nothing is fast in space. I'm sure you would use up much more time in ingress/egress than you would ever save.
Of course, then there's the obvious failsafe scenario... if your suit can keep you alive for 24 hours instead of, say, 2 and some emergency forces you to need that extra support, it's there.
On the other hand, the lighted heating/cooling l
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If you're supplying breathing air for the astronaut the suit is going to inflate, unless you want to put an airtight seal around their neck (don't think that would be too popular) you're not going to keep the air from the rest of the suit. An inflated suit also allows easier breathing by its wearer, they don't have to fight to deflate the lungs.
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If you're supplying breathing air for the astronaut the suit is going to inflate, unless you want to put an airtight seal around their neck
Which is exactly what a skin suit is designed to do. It's more like a leotard with a helmet than an Apollo or Shuttle space suit.
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Two questions then; 1) How do you avoid choking your wearer if the seal is tight enough to keep air out of the suit? 2) Is the suit going to assist the astronaut to deflate their lungs after each breath? If not, how are you preventing fatigue?
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You don't need to "force" the air out of your lungs. The suit, providing ~15 psi of compression, would give you an Earth-like breathing experience (where pressure is effectively equal inside and outside the lungs).
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No, haven't worn a dry suit. The reason that I asked about breathing is because your lungs would be at a higher pressure than the vacuum surrounding you. This isn't a pressure while diving, since the pressure supplied by the breathing equipment equalizes with the water pressure. In a typical pressure suit the pressure in the lungs equals that inside the suit. The AC above mentioned solutions in development.
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The reason that I asked about breathing is because your lungs would be at a higher pressure than the vacuum surrounding you.
If the pressure suit presses on you at 15 psi, then your lungs will be pressure-equal, in and out (presuming the air feed is pressurized to 15 psi). Likely, though, you'd be pressurized to something about 5 psi of pure O2, no need to ship the N2 up to space. O2 requirements are based on the partial pressure, so lower total pressure and higher concentration would solve all the problems.
Be a shame if a meteorite were to puncture that (Score:1)
Said the military contractor to the gullible public.
1970s SF (Score:2)
They basically had incredibly thin flexible suits which were sprayed on most of the body and dissolved chemically off of them afterwards.
Most of the body just needs pressure containment and protection from exposure.
You could put on a non pressurized heat protective layer on top of the pressure layer of the suit.
I think we have the fabrics to do this now- just not spray / dissolve.
But much simpler suits- not more complicated. Separate the heat/cold protection from the pressure layer. Two or more piece/laye
Solved in 1960's (Score:3)
There's a much lighter, working space suit design that's been available for years, and has been repeatedly redesigned. It's called a "skin suit". Essentially a wetsuit with a helmet, the suit relies on the astronaut's own skin as part of its structure holding in the astronaut's body fluids. Air, or oxygen, released into the helmet passes down the suits structure and through the astronaut, themselves, and slowly leaks out the slightly porous material. This avoids the mechanical pressurizaiton problems of providing air at enough pressure to breathe, but dealing with the pressure throughout the enite surace of the suit. It also providing critical cooling for most space suit use. It does consume air or oxygen in use, but the mass lost in days of use is quite modest compared to the mass, difficulty of use, complexity, and mechanical fragility of the heavy and overbuilt modern space suits.
An example can be seen at http://spaceindustrynews.com/mits-next-mars-space-suit/ [spaceindustrynews.com], The technology has worked since the 1960's, when Paul Webb originally designed it.
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You beat me to it, it's called the "Biosuit". Here are some more-recent articles, including photos of Professor Dava Newman modelling the skin-tight suit.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/dava-newmans-skintight-spacesuit-could-be-nasas-future-2013-12 [businessinsider.com.au]
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/appel/ask/issues/45/45s_building_future_spacesuit.html [nasa.gov]
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Oh. Oh my. I'd never actually seen that. That was one of the scariest YouTube videos I'e ever seen.