WEBVTT - Space Suit Evolution 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.639 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.960 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.639 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.800 Tech Are You? So? Currently, on August twenty six, twenty 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:28.360 twenty four, there is a planned private space launch. SpaceX 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:33.280 is going to be launching four people into orbit, in fact, 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:36.320 a high orbit that human beings have not been in 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.239 in quite some time. At least that's the plan. The 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:44.639 four people include Jared Isaacman he is the billionaire founder 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:51.159 of Shift four, Scott Petite, Ann Menon, and Sarah Gillis. Now, 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.720 these four private astronauts are planning on going up into 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.280 this very high orbit, as I mentioned before. But the 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:03.960 thing I think is really audacious and ambitious is that 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:07.720 the plan is for this to become the first private 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:13.800 space expedition that will include EVAs extra vehicular activities or 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.600 space walks in the common parlance. And obviously that's a 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:23.039 huge deal. Like to go out into space with nothing 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.119 but a spacesuit to protect you from the fact that, 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.720 as I have mentioned many times before in this and 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.080 other podcasts, the fact that space is always trying to 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:37.600 kill you. So I think that's a really exciting goal. 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:40.760 And it made me think of an episode that we 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.480 published back in twenty twenty one. And because I'm working 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.920 on a few other episodes right now that are taking 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:50.800 up a lot of time because there's just a lot 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.800 of research to read through, I thought we could revisit 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.400 that episode from twenty twenty one. It published August sixteenth, 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.880 twenty twenty one, so almost exactly three years ago, just 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.720 a little more than that now, and it is titled 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:13.280 Space Suit Evolution I hope you enjoy. Back in March 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.880 of twenty twenty, just as we were starting to go 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.040 into a work from home phase, I published the episode 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:23.840 about the Artemis program, you know, the one that I 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:26.240 actually ran last week, So if you if you did 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:28.720 miss it back in March twenty twenty, we ran it 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.120 again last week. And that might have even been the 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.440 very first episode that published after our office closed, because 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.240 it published on March sixteenth, twenty twenty, and from a 0:02:40.440 --> 0:02:43.680 desk calendar that refuses to change, I know the last 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:46.359 day that most people were in the office was March thirteenth, 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:49.919 twenty twenty. Anyway, in that episode, in case you didn't 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.280 listen to the rerun from last week, I described the 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.919 goals in the purpose of NASA's Artemis program, which includes 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.200 a return to the Moon, and I'm sure that I 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:03.600 mentioned probably moreultiple times that it was an incredibly aggressive goal, 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.200 one that I was kind of having trouble seeing NASA 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:11.360 actually achieve. It just seemed like it was too tough 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.079 of a thing to do to have it be done 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:17.480 by twenty twenty four. Well, NASA's Office of the Inspector 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:20.960 General has outright said that the twenty twenty four goal 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.359 is unachievable because one of the necessary components, that being 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.360 a new space suit design, will not be ready until 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.519 the spring of twenty twenty five at the earliest. That's 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.760 not the only thing that's going to push that program back, 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.480 but it's one of the big ones. So I thought 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.680 today we would talk a bit about space suits and 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:46.160 their history, and then in our next episode we'll continue 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.360 that and talk about the current project to update space 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.520 suits and why has it taken so long? Why are 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:55.480 we behind schedule? But to start off with, let's talk 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.200 about why you need a space suit out there in 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.280 the first place. Now, those of you have been listening 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.120 to tech stuff for a while know that I have 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:06.520 a saying, Actually I've got a few of them, but 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.120 one of them is space is trying to kill you 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.920 all the time. It never rests, and it's always trying 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:15.880 to do it. And there are a lot of ways 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.680 that space is doing this. One is that space, like 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:23.640 one of those terrible restaurants, has a complete lack of atmosphere. 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.560 I mean, like there's no oxygen out there, so you'd 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:29.560 have nothing to breathe. You could pass out within fifteen 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:33.679 seconds just from that alone. Beyond that, your blood could 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.400 boil in space. And that might seem a bit counterintuitive 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.400 after all, Like if you're talking about deep space, that's cold, right, 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.279 I mean, like if you're talking about deep deep space 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.919 you're outside of the Solar System, that would just be 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.479 a couple of degrees off from absolute zero, which is 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:52.039 the coldest temperature possible because at absolute zero, there's no 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:55.960 molecular movement at all. Atoms are just kind of perfectly still. 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.640 Normally they're vibrating all around the place. So with the 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.880 temper sure that cold, you would probably expect to freeze 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.880 rather than to boil. I'll come back to the temperature 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.000 thing in just a second, but here's the tricky bit. See, 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.159 for heat to dissipate, you need to have a way 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.560 to transfer it away from one body to another, and 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.520 without convection, the heat would tend to stay with you 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.599 for a bit. Though you wouldn't stay warm for long. 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:25.480 It's just you wouldn't immediately turn into an ice lolly. 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.480 Now that means you'd have enough body heat to boil 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.000 off your body fluids and blood. See, the vacuum of 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.960 space means there's very very low pressure. Right, there's no 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.520 air pressure in space, and that would reduce the boiling 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.200 point of the various liquids in your body. And if 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:46.480 they're reduced down low enough, it means that your body 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.480 heat alone would be enough to boil off those liquids. Now, 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.800 we can totally simulate this on Earth, though preferably not 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.880 with a living creature, by putting you a jar of 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.080 room temperature water in a vacuum chamber and then sucking 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:04.920 the air out of the chamber, and you can make 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.599 water boil at room temperature. This way, the water does 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.520 not get hotter or anything like that, it just has 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:15.440 a lower boiling point. Actually, the temperature of your blood 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.520 and body fluids would probably go down as it was boiling, 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.080 because boiling is an endothermic process and the liquid loses 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.080 energy in that process. But we'll move on because we 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:30.240 got a lot of other stuff to cover in this episode. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.719 So those boiling body fluids and the low pressure environment 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.159 of space means that all your soft tissues would also 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.960 start to swell and expand that would be uncomfortable if 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.479 it were just you know, like your skin and maybe 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:45.440 your fat tissue, but it also includes your internal organ 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.599 so that's you know, inconvenient at best. Now. I also 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:54.159 mentioned that, as con said in Star Trek two, it's 0:06:54.320 --> 0:07:01.080 very cold in space, but that's only part partly true. See, 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.520 if you're exposed to sunlight out in outer space, you 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:07.440 could experience temperatures of around one hundred and twenty degrees 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:11.240 celsius or two hundred and forty eight degrees fahrenheit. Now, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:13.840 if you're out of the sun, if you are in 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.880 you know, the shade in space, that temperature would plunge, 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.440 though not necessarily all the way down to absolute zero, 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.800 you know, because we reserve the super cold stuff or 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.400 deep space, but it would go really low, like more 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.960 than negative one hundred degrees fahrenheit and that means that 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.880 you're going to encounter vastly different temperatures and changes in temperature. 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.400 Then you've got tiny particles in space that can be 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.840 moving at incredible speeds. These are micro meteoroids, and they 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.560 are tiny, but because of momentum, they can pack a 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:52.360 huge punch. See that's that classic equation of momentum is 0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:58.520 mass times velocity, So the mass of a some matter 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.400 traveling at a specific velocity, which is you know, speed 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.840 plus direction. So a tiny particle could have very little mass, 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.160 but if it's traveling fast enough, it carries a heck 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.360 of a lot of momentum. I mean, that's the principle 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:16.440 behind things like projectile weapons, right. They projectiles don't have 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.320 a lot of mass, but they move super fast, so 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.400 they have a lot of momentum and thus they can 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:23.680 have a big impact. So you would want to wear 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:26.080 something that could offer at least some protection against that 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.240 kind of stuff. Then you've got the various forms of 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.240 radiation that you would encounter in space. Here on Earth 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.760 we have an atmosphere and a magnetosphere, and together those 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:39.000 provide us with some protection against some of the worst 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.480 radiation out there, like gamma radiation and that kind of thing. 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.800 But if you're outside of that layer of protection, you 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.719 need something to keep you safe from deadly radiation or 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.440 else you could suffer some serious consequences from acute burns 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.520 to long term health complications like cancer. So obviously, if 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.400 you want to visit someplace like the moon, going to 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.600 need a special suit to provide protection against the multitude 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.880 of ways space is trying to kill you. The suit 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.040 needs to be pressurized and allow you to have a 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.200 breathable atmosphere inside. The suit needs to be able to 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.480 remove carbon dioxide which we exhale so that we can 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.280 continue to breathe oxygen and function. It needs to protect 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:22.920 against micro meteoroids at least a little bit. Needs to 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.240 keep you at a temperature that's not too hot or 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.280 too cold, even as you exert energy to move around 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:33.040 and encounter areas of fluctuating temperatures. Ideally, it also will 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.720 include systems that let you communicate with other people. After all, 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.520 because space has a shortage of molecules out there, sound 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.400 does not travel in space. For sound to travel, molecules 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:48.320 need to vibrate against other molecules. Sound travels through the 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:53.440 air through air pressure, fluctuations and that really, when you 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:55.960 zoom in on, the whole thing would just be air 0:09:56.000 --> 0:10:01.040 molecules moving and causing neighboring air molecules to move back 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.119 and forth at certain frequencies. And some of those frequencies 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.480 we can observe as sound, We can perceive them. Space 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:12.840 does not have that excess of molecules, so there's nothing 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.440 to carry sound out there. So we got to have 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.800 tech systems built into our suits if we want to 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.240 be able to talk to each other or to people 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.480 back on Earth. So those are some of the bare 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:28.080 minimum requirements that you would want from your spacesuit, you know, 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.120 assuming you were going to go out into space itself. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.199 The earliest spacesuits were a bit simpler than that because 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.600 they weren't intended to be worn outside of a spacecraft. 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.160 You know, there was no extra vehicular activity or EVA 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.680 in the earliest missions. The spacesuits needed to protect the 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.880 people in the spacecraft from other potential threats like maybe 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:55.520 a fire aboard the spacecraft. They actually evolved from flight suits. 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.719 So let's start with flight suits and work our way up, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.840 all right, So the earliest aviation outfits were for low 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.240 altitude flying, because that's what the aircraft of the day 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.480 were capable of so early pilots all the way up 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:13.560 into the World War One era would wear some pretty 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:17.120 simple gear. There were a few attempts at creating official 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.960 pilot uniforms and suits in the early days of World 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.640 War One, but many pilots chose to go up with 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.320 their own gear instead, as the suits weren't necessarily a 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.240 good fit I mean, so to speak, not like literally fit, 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.840 but like they didn't provide the level of protection against 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.600 the cold, for example, that a lot of pilots wanted. 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:40.240 So this was actually approved by the military. I mean, 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:44.840 air combat was so new anyway that it was kind 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.439 of the military catching up to technology. Most of the gear, 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.440 whether it was provided by the military or the pilots themselves, 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:56.120 was either repurposed or modified motoring gear, so the kind 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.160 of stuff that people who were driving automobiles were wearing. 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:01.640 So this is where we would get that image of 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:06.199 pilots wearing bomber jackets and baggy trousers. They were practical 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.720 in that they helped the pilot to stay warm and 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.720 offered a bit of protection against stuff like you know, 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.360 debris that you might encounter or oil that was given 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.480 off by the engine, and for that same reason, pilots 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.800 typically wore goggles to protect their eyes, and gloves to 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.199 protect their hands, and helmets to you know, protect their noggins. 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.080 This was in the open cockpit days when airplanes did 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.000 not travel to super high altitudes, so there wasn't really 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:35.920 a need for pressurization yet. Also, the temperatures in winter 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.600 could dip as low as negative thirty five celsius when 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.400 flying at altitudes of ten to fifteen thousand feet, which 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.000 was kind of, you know, not uncommon in some parts 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.959 of the world during World War One, so staying warm 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:52.559 was absolutely vital. Then there was this fella named Sidney 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:56.240 Cotton from Australia who helped develop a flight suit that 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.960 had a fur and air proof silk lining in it 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.520 to protect against the cold. His design was so well 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.720 received and it became known as the Sidcot flight suit 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:10.520 for Sydney Cotton. It became the standard for the second 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.439 half of World War One for especially the Royal Air Force, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:19.280 so the sid Cut suits became pretty much universal there. 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.720 The first actual flight suit that was made specifically to 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:25.120 handle the challenges of flying in a plane at higher 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:29.320 altitudes was the product of a pilot named Wiley Post 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:34.160 who along with the company BF Goodrich, created this flight 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.679 suit and the suit was pressurized. It had special arm 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.400 and leg joints to help the pilot with mobility because 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.280 when you pressurize a suit, I mean you're kind you're 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.000 inflating essentially, is what you're doing. So you have to 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.760 have some way of dealing with mobility issues because the 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.840 suit gets stiff because it's like you're inside a giant balloon. 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.080 And also they connected the suit to a source of 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:02.440 liquid oxygen to end up supplying air for the higher altitudes. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.240 By World War Two, the nature of air combat had 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.280 changed and you had bombers that could fly at very 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.520 high altitudes. But in the days before pressurized cabins, it 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.480 meant that the people inside the planes needed to wear 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.440 special flight suits with electric heating elements in them to 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.600 fight off the cold at those higher altitudes. And just 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:25.520 as a reminder, electric heaters are really simple electronics. Basically, 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.960 you have a conductor that has a pretty good resistance 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:31.960 to electrical flow, and then you try to feed a 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.720 current through that conductor. So as electricity tries to flow 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.000 through this conductor that has high resistance, a lot of 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.440 that electrical energy converts into heat, and this is the 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:47.200 principle behind stuff like electric stovetops and electric toasters. I mean, 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.080 it's similar to how incandescent light bulbs work in a 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:52.520 way as well. And I should add that there was 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.080 some experimentation with electric heated components even back as far 0:14:56.120 --> 0:15:00.400 as World War One, but they were pretty primitive. In addition, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:03.560 they were typically powered by a small windmill generator that 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:06.520 could be mounted onto the wing of a plane, and 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:08.840 a normal operation that was fine. But if the pilot 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.960 ever had to engage in say like a dive, where 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.000 the velocity of the air going past the plane increased dramatically, 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.040 well that would coincide with an increased output from the 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:24.400 windmill generator, and then you could have way too much 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:27.920 voltage being supplied to the heating elements, and the pilot 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.440 could actually get burned by these components that were meant 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:33.400 to keep the pilot warm as they flew, which is 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.000 kind of a big yikes. But over time the flight 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:42.440 suit evolved, pressurization, heating elements, oxygen supply, protective elements like helmets, 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.600 and the development of flame retardet materials all became part 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:48.520 of the design of flight suits, and post World War 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.600 Two we entered into an era of new experimentation with 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:55.360 regard to high altitude flying and really pushing the limits 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:59.400 of both aircraft and human endurance. Part of that was 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:04.000 how human can handle acceleration or G forces, so like 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:08.440 G force being in relation to the strength of gravity 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:13.320 right at sea level essentially, but one G is one 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:17.960 one to one of Earth's gravity. Well, that last bit about, 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:23.040 you know, withstanding acceleration was super important because during intense acceleration, 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.480 humans have a tendency to black out. I mean, obviously, 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:30.160 when you're piloting a craft through the air or in space, 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.600 that's a bad thing. I mean, it's not really a 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.040 good thing in any context, I suppose. But what is 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.240 going on here? Why do we black out at higher accelerations. Well, 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.520 during those intense accelerations, our blood tends to pool in 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.360 the lower part of our body, and that means the 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:49.400 old brain ain't getting enough of that sweet, sweet oxygen 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.400 that it craves oh so much. And this can lead 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.720 to a grayout, which is where your vision starts to diminish, 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.320 or a full on blackout where you lose your vision 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.560 and even a loss of consciousness. Now, the suits developed 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.639 in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties used various means, 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.560 such as inflatable bladders that could fill with either air 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:13.960 or with water in some cases, to provide pressure on 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.800 the lower parts of the body and help push back 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.720 against that tendency for blood to pool in the lower 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.720 half of the body. Even so, this typically only allows 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.159 a pilot to endure a little more acceleration than whatever 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:33.200 their natural tolerance is, so that's somewhere in between three 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.720 to five times the force of gravity for most people. Interestingly, 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.840 the development of these components was something of a controversy 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:44.320 in that the people who were building the planes, the 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.400 engineers building planes, were kind of worried that if pilots 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.399 knew that they could push themselves harder because their suits 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:55.640 would allow them to withstand greater acceleration, that they would 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.200 bloody well go and do that, even if it meant 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:04.040 that they were pushing the aircraft beyond its own stress capabilities. 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.160 And so some air forces, some you know, some some 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.160 flight schools and stuff, chose to hold back on incorporating 0:18:11.200 --> 0:18:13.439 what would become known as G suits for a while 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:17.679 in an effort to avoid encouraging pilots to you know, 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:23.800 go fast. Oh. Also, interestingly, one person to experiment with 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:26.520 g suit development in the early forties was a guy 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:32.119 named Frank Cotton from Australia. I say interestingly because if 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.240 you were listening earlier, you heard me talk about Sydney Cotton, 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.439 also from Australia. Who is the fella who came up 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:43.399 with that Sidcot suit? So your question is, were Frank 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:47.919 and Sydney Cotton related? I have no cotton pick an idea. 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:50.119 That was a long way to go for something that 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:52.320 wasn't even quite a joke. In fact, I think it 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.240 was long enough where we all need to take a 0:18:54.320 --> 0:19:05.240 quick break, but we'll be right back. So by the 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:09.080 nineteen fifties, the flight suit had evolved into gear that 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.040 was meant to provide various types of protection to pilots. 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:16.359 With the creation of pressurized cabins with climate control, some 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.359 of the stuff was less important, right, Some of the 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:24.240 pressurization things and the heat elements weren't as important and 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.239 didn't need to be incorporated into some flight suits. But 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.080 flight suits still needed to be flame resistant, they needed 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.880 to allow for mobility, and they needed to provide protection 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.520 in the event that a pilot needed to eject from 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.240 their aircraft, and also for anything that was involving a 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.840 lot of like intense acceleration, you needed to have that 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:47.359 G suit protection. But now let's move on to space suits, because, 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.080 as I said earlier, they evolved from flight suits. The 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.359 space race that got started in the nineteen fifties was 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.440 really an extension of the Cold War and a race 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.760 between the United States and the then Soviet Union to 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.720 reach certain milestones before the other could, all while also 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:09.439 demonstrating a technological capability of raining destruction down on the 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.280 other country should it all come to that. So in 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:18.560 some ways this was a struggle to clean technological superiority 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:22.280 over a rival. The Soviets really got the jump on 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.040 the Americans with the launch of Sputnik in nineteen fifty seven, 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:30.160 marking the first time a human made satellite entered Earth orbit, 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.320 and they would also be the first to put a 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:37.680 person into space. The first spacesuit emerged from the then 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.360 Soviet Union as part of its cosmonaut program. It had 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:45.480 the designation of SK one. The SK stood for some 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:49.880 Russian words that translate roughly into space diving suit because 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.359 the suit had some features similar to like a deep 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:56.440 sea diving suit, think of like the big daddies in BioShock, 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.399 and even this was an evolution of earlier flight suits 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:04.080 worn by Soviet jet fighter pilots. The first human to 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.880 go into space was Yuri Gagarin in nineteen sixty one, 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.399 and Gageron's trip was aboard a space capsule and he 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:15.359 wasn't going to exit the capsule while in space, so 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:19.760 he didn't need to have the full extra vehicular activity 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:23.560 style spacesuit. However, because the Soviets had not yet developed 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.879 a spacecraft that could land safely, he would have to 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:31.560 eject during descent and then parachute down from an altitude 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.960 of around twenty thousand feet. So these are the sort 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:38.520 of factors that went into the design of the suit. 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:40.359 They had to make a suit that would be able 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.159 to do these kind of things. The suit had a 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.280 helmet that had a visor that could be lowered down 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.399 over the face. In fact, it had a pressure sensor. 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.760 If the pressure sensor detected a decrease in pressure a 0:21:51.840 --> 0:21:56.239 rapid decompression, then the visor could slam down and seal it. 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.600 The helmet was permanently attached to the suit. You could 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:02.800 only the helmet off by taking off the whole darn suit. 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:07.040 Worn Under the helmet was a leather covered radio headset 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.200 below the helmet on the suit was a collar that 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.800 could inflate in the event that Gageron landed in the water. 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:16.400 That would allow him to keep his head above water 0:22:16.480 --> 0:22:18.800 if that were the case, because again, since the helmet 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:21.320 couldn't be removed, there was no getting out of that 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.160 suit quickly in the case of water landing, but an 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.879 inflated collar could keep his head above the level of water. 0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:31.399 The fabric of the suit was nylon, which is a 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:34.760 synthetic polymer, and it was bright orange in color to 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.080 make it easier to spot Gagern upon his return. The 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:42.280 suit also had gloves with leather palms and heavy leather boots, 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.240 and the suit did the job. Gageran returned safely to 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.600 Earth after spending more than an hour and a half 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:53.640 orbiting the planet. One time, he reportedly startled a farmer 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:57.879 and his daughter as he returned. When he landed, his 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:02.280 walking through the countryside, dragging a parachute behind him, dressed 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:04.600 in a big orange suit and having a big helmet on, 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:07.520 and he tried his best to assure them that he 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:10.000 was a Soviet just like they were, and all he 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.840 needed was a telephone in order to call Moscow, which 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:15.800 I just think is a great story. Meanwhile, over the 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:20.880 United States, there was the same rush to get to space, 0:23:21.040 --> 0:23:22.920 and at that point it was a rush to catch 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:25.280 up to the Soviets because they had beaten America to 0:23:25.320 --> 0:23:29.000 the punch. Engineers were already working on suit designs that 0:23:29.040 --> 0:23:31.560 would be suitable to allow astronauts to go outside of 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:35.200 a spacecraft, perhaps even walking on the Moon. But these 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:37.800 were in the earliest stages of development. They were in 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.520 the prototype stage. And I saw pictures of one of 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:44.800 the early pressurized suits and it literally looked like it 0:23:44.840 --> 0:23:47.760 came out of a Ed Wood science fiction film. If 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:49.600 you don't know who that is, Plan nine from Outer 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:55.120 Space director, just the cheesiest of nineteen fifty style sci 0:23:55.160 --> 0:23:59.320 fi B movies. And the engineer inside the suit was 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:02.320 wearing it looked like kind of a metal barrel for 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:06.080