2012-04-01
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It’s been two weeks since I posted Mark and Roland Cunningham’s X-ray photograph of Alan B Shepard’s Apollo 14 spacesuit, which is now at well over 8,500 notes (thanks to being featured on Tumblr’s Radar).
I wasn’t the first (and I’m sure I won’t be the last) to post this image. For example, it was featured in an article on the Smithsonian’s spacesuit collection in the New York Times, along with annotations. Nonetheless, thanks to all of you who liked or reblogged the image, and those of you who’ve tagged along as followers since. (captioned image via)
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Nicholas de Monchaux replying to questions in an interview about Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo, at Txchnologist.
(See also.)
2012-03-19
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A&S: What were the advantages of the hard suit versus the soft suit? Why two totally different kinds?
Elkins: There are some advantages of the hard suit, although I did not remain a proponent of it. The hard suit had value for being able to go to much higher pressures. The higher you go, the less likely you are to have the bends when exiting a higher-pressure space vehicle. So if you were wearing one, you could scramble to do an emergency [spacewalk] because you didn’t have to pre-breathe for four hours. It’s a very mobile little spaceship, if you will. Vic Vykukal, a NASA Ames engineer, also did pioneering work on the hard suit. Although it demonstrated excellent mobility, it was heavier because of the hard structural components, and the joints did not exhibit the long-life capability of the toroidal joint.
The soft suit came from a line of pressure suits used by the Air Force and Navy. BF Goodrich’s soft suits for the Mercury project were evolved from a Navy pressure suit. David Clark made soft suits for Gemini. Then ILC came into the Apollo program. They all came from that same soft emergency pressure suit lineage. It was a question of cultures and politics within the R&D labs. There was the West Coast technology such as Litton, and NASA’s Ames Research lab; but then the older timers from the East who knew soft suits. Ultimately, soft suits won out.
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DuPont materials in the A7L Apollo space suit (via the Space Science, Astronomy, and Astrophysics forum at Alien Scientist.)
2012-03-18
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Behind The Scenes at the National Air and Space Museum: A Blending of Photography and X-Ray:
An x-ray of Alan Shepard’s Apollo 14 spacesuit allows curators and conservators to “see” inside space clothing—a task that had previously been done by peering through the neck or the wrist with a flashlight.
See also. (Together.) Photograph: Mark and Roland Cunningham.
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2012-03-10
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From a 2010 Gawker article about a book of the Smithsonian’s spacesuit collection. Left to right:
- A4-H – Universal Hamilton Standard, 1964
- Spd-143-1a Ax1-L Apollo Prototype, ILC Industries, 1963
- GT-7 – Gemini Protective Helmet. 1965
- Mercury – Training, Schirra, 1960
If you’re interested in the history of the spacesuit up to and past the moon missions (and to some extent even if you’re not), I can’t recommend last year’s Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo highly enough. A fascinating, multi-layered read.
2011-05-25
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James Burke in - and then out of - an A7L suit, as built by the International Latex Corporation for NASA’s Apollo programme.
