Space suits must provide all of the comfort and support that the Earth or a spacecraft does, addressing issues like atmosphere, water and protection from radiation. Outer space is an extremely hostile place. If you were to step outside a spacecraft and you weren't wearing a space suit, the following things could. While early space suits were made entirely of soft fabrics, today's Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) has a combination of soft and hard components to provide support, mobility and comfort. The suit itself has 13 layers of material, including an inner cooling garment (two layers), pressure garment (two layers), thermal micrometeoroid garment (eight layers) and outer cover (one layer). Space prints set of 3, boys room decor, outer space decor, space suit, space travel MonicaDesignsStudio. From shop MonicaDesignsStudio. 5 out of 5 stars (227) 227 reviews. Sale Price $15.99 $ 15.99 $ 19.99 Original Price $19.99 (20% off).
- Spacesuit Designericson Room 55mrs. Mcbride Youtube
- Spacesuit Designericson Room 55mrs. Mcbride Mi
- Spacesuit Designericson Room 55mrs. Mcbride Md
[image-12]
When astronauts go outside the International Space Station for a spacewalk, they wear gloves that NASA engineer Amy Ross had a hand in developing. The gloves that Ross helped design nearly ten years ago are the same gloves worn by crewmembers today.
Ross is an advanced spacesuit designer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. She is also the daughter of astronaut Jerry Ross, who has flown in space seven times and conducted nine spacewalks, setting two U.S. records.
As a NASA co-op student in the 1990s, Amy Ross worked with veteran spacesuit designer Joseph Kosmo on a new glove design, which is still in use today. Kosmo has designed suits for NASA since 1961 and participated in the development of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and shuttle spacesuits, as well as numerous advanced technology configuration spacesuits for future applications.
Kosmo and Ross looked specifically at a new glove design for extravehicular activities, or EVAs, to replace the 4000 series EVA glove, introduced in 1985.
'The space station and EVAs were really ramping up,' Ross said. 'We needed to help those guys and gals. We needed to do something significant. And a new glove would be best.'
'[Kosmo] had done several different glove designs and had tested them and took the good bits of each one and stuck them into one glove,' Ross recalled. The results were the Phase VI glove, which gave crewmembers a more comfortable fit and improved hand mobility. The Phase VI glove was the first EVA glove to be developed completely with computer-aided design.
'It was fun,' Ross said of the design and flight-certification process for the new glove. 'My job was to get the Phase VI glove ready for flight. I certified our prototype to a flight design.'
The first pair was worn by her father on the first International Space Station assembly flight, STS-88, in December 1998.
'He was supposed to wear the 4000 series on an EVA, the Phase VI on an EVA and then pick whichever pair he liked best on the third EVA so that we'd get a comparison,' the younger Ross explained. But her father didn't exactly follow that plan.
'He wore a Phase VI glove on the first EVA. He wore a Phase VI glove on the second EVA. And he wore a Phase VI glove on the third EVA,' Ross said with a smile. 'Apparently he liked them. After that, we went into production.'
[image-78]
Ross' mom is also part of America's space program. Karen Ross is a food technologist with United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor. Ross said her dad jokes that she dresses him and her mom feeds him.
Ross said her parents' careers, as well as a summer tending animals, influenced her decision to pursue a career in science.
'In high school ... I liked animals a lot, and space, of course, was everywhere. So I went and worked at a friend's dad's vet clinic one summer and decided, 'Nope, I don't want to do that,' Ross remembered.
After high school, she successfully pursued a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in mechanical engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. She got her foot in NASA's door in 1990 as a co-op student through the NASA Cooperative Education Program, which supports NASA's goal of strengthening the agency's and the nation's future workforce. Ross joined the space agency full-time in 1996.
In the late 1990s, Ross and other NASA engineers experimented with building a better surface EVA suit like those worn on the moon during the Apollo missions. Were they able to construct a better suit than those worn decades ago? Ross said the answer was yes ... and no.
'Some of the detailed designs were almost replicated because there are some limited options, for example designing a soft shoulder. There's only so many different ways you can do that,' she said. 'Now some of the other joints, like the elbows and the knees, were significantly better, and the gloves, of course, have come a million miles from the Apollo gloves.'
'But these guys had never designed spacesuits before. Nobody had designed spacesuits before, so they did a really good job.'
Her current focus is the development of a new pressure garment for the Constellation Program, which will carry humans back to the moon and beyond.
The scientists and engineers involved in the Constellation Program are currently looking at a design of spacesuits that would incorporate as much commonality as possible while still serving different purposes: launch and entry, EVAs in microgravity, and EVAs on a lunar or planetary surface. Although challenging, this design would allow the suits to perform different functions while taking up less space.
Engineers are currently exploring the functional requirements for future suits, specifically how those requirements are different from current needs.
'If you're on the lunar surface, what are you going to be doing on there? Geology. OK, if you're going to be doing geology, what do geologists do? How do they move to do their job?' Ross explained. 'Once you have a good feel for what the requirements are, then you start trying to figure out what architecture will allow that.'
Proposed suit designs will go through a feasibility study to make sure they meet the requirements and then on to a detailed design phase where factors like color and size will be determined.
When Constellation suits are flown, it will be the first time in 30 years NASA has used a new spacesuit, and the new suits have quite a bit more required of them, Ross said.
'It's a challenge,' she admitted. 'You're always widening your path toward the ideal. Ideally you'd build a spacesuit that weighs almost nothing, is very comfortable, allows you to move as if you don't have a spacesuit on. There is probably an unattainable ideal out there, but you're always working toward that.'
Related Resources
NASA Space Shuttle
NASA International Space Station
NASA Office of Education Web Site
NASA Education Student Projects
NASA's Space Exploration Program
NASA Johnson Space Center
Heather R. Smith/NASA Educational Technology Services
By creating an Earth-like environment within the suit itself, space suits allow humans to walk around in space in relative safety. Space suits provide:
Pressurized Atmosphere
The space suit provides air pressure to keep the fluids in your body in a liquid state -- in other words, to prevent your bodily fluids from boiling. Like a tire, a space suit is essentially an inflated balloon that is restricted by some rubberized fabric, in this case, Neoprene-coated fibers. The restriction placed on the 'balloon' portion of the suit supplies air pressure on the astronaut inside, like blowing up a balloon inside a cardboard tube.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Most space suits operate at pressures below normal atmospheric pressure (14.7 lb/in2, or 1 atm); the space shuttle cabin also operates at normal atmospheric pressure. The space suit used by shuttle astronauts operates at 4.3 lb/in2, or 0.29 atm. Therefore, the cabin pressure of either the shuttle itself or an airlock must be reduced before an astronaut gets suited up for a spacewalk. A spacewalking astronaut runs the risk of getting the bends because of the changes in pressure between the space suit and the shuttle cabin.
Oxygen
Space suits cannot use normal air -- 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent other gases -- because the low pressure would cause dangerously low oxygen concentrations in the lungs and blood, much like climbing Mt. Everest does. So, most space suits provide a pure oxygen atmosphere for breathing. Space suits get the oxygen either from a spacecraft via an umbilical cord or from a backpack life support system that the astronaut wears.
Both the shuttle and the International Space Station have normal air mixtures that mimic our atmosphere. Therefore, to go into a pure oxygen space suit, a spacewalking astronaut must 'pre-breathe' pure oxygen for some period of time before suiting up. This pre-breathing of pure oxygen eliminates the nitrogen from the astronaut's blood and tissues, thereby minimizing the risk of the bends.
Carbon Dioxide
The astronaut breathes out carbon dioxide. In the confined space of the suit, carbon dioxide concentrations would build up to deadly levels. Therefore, excess carbon dioxide must be removed from the space suit's atmosphere. Space suits use lithium hydroxide canisters to remove carbon dioxide. These canisters are located either in the space suit's life support backpack or in the spacecraft, in which case they are accessed through an umbilical cord.
Temperature
To cope with the extremes of temperature, most space suits are heavily insulated with layers of fabric (Neoprene, Gore-Tex, Dacron) and covered with reflective outer layers (Mylar or white fabric) to reflect sunlight. The astronaut produces heat from his/her body, especially when doing strenuous activities. If this heat is not removed, the sweat produced by the astronaut will fog up the helmet and cause the astronaut to become severely dehydrated; astronaut Eugene Cernan lost several pounds during his spacewalk on Gemini 9. To remove this excess heat, space suits have used either fans/heat exchangers to blow cool air, as in the Mercury and Gemini programs, or water-cooled garments, which have been used from the Apollo program to the present.
Micrometeroids
To protect the astronauts from collisions with micrometeroids, space suits have multiple layers of durable fabrics such as Dacron or Kevlar. These layers also prevent the suit from tearing on exposed surfaces of the spacecraft or a planet or moon.
Radiation
Space suits offer only limited protection from radiation. Some protection is offered by the reflective coatings of Mylar that are built into the suits, but a space suit would not offer much protection from a solar flare. So, spacewalks are planned during periods of low solar activity.
Clear Sight
Spacesuit Designericson Room 55mrs. Mcbride Youtube
Space suits have helmets that are made of clear plastic or durable polycarbonate. Most helmets have coverings to reflect sunlight, and tinted visors to reduce glare, much like sunglasses. Also, prior to a spacewalk, the inside faceplates of the helmet are sprayed with an anti-fog compound. Finally, modern space suit helmet coverings have mounted lights so that the astronauts can see into the shadows.
Mobility Within the Space suit
Moving within an inflated space suit is tough. Imagine trying to move your fingers in a rubber glove blown up with air; it doesn't give very much. To help this problem, space suits are equipped with special joints or tapers in the fabric to help the astronauts bend their hands, arms, legs, knees and ankles.
Communications
Spacesuit Designericson Room 55mrs. Mcbride Mi
Space suits are equipped with radio transmitters/receivers so that spacewalking astronauts can talk with ground controllers and/or other astronauts. The astronauts wear headsets with microphones and earphones. The transmitters/receivers are located in the chestpacks/backpacks worn by the astronauts.
Mobility in the Spacecraft
In weightlessness, it is difficult to move around. If you push on something, you fly off in the opposite direction (Newton's third law of motion -- for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). Gemini spacewalking astronauts reported great problems with just maintaining their positions; when they tried to turn a wrench, they spun in the opposite direction. Therefore, spacecraft are equipped with footholds and hand restraints to help astronauts work in microgravity. In addition, before the mission, astronauts practice spacewalking in big water tanks on Earth. The buoyancy of an inflated space suit in water simulates microgravity.
Spacesuit Designericson Room 55mrs. Mcbride Md
NASA has also developed some gas-powered rocket maneuvering devices to allow astronauts to move freely in space without being tethered to the spacecraft. One such device, which was called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), was basically a gas-thruster powered chair with a joystick control. NASA has also developed a nitrogen-gas propelled unit that fits on the backpack, called the Simplified Aid for Extravehicular Activity Rescue (SAFER). The SAFER can help an astronaut return to the shuttle or station in the event that he/she gets separated from the spacecraft. The SAFER holds 3.1 lb (1.4 kg) of nitrogen propellant and can change an astronaut's velocity by a maximum of about 9 feet/second (3 meters/second).