Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: job than Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all Things sech And we are continuing
Speaker 1: our series about space suits and their evolution. So the
Speaker 1: last episode we really focused on the suits used in
Speaker 1: the Apollo missions. We also talked a lot about pooping
Speaker 1: in space, which I felt was necessary to talk about.
Speaker 1: It's also necessary to do sometimes, and those Apollo space
Speaker 1: which actually did change a bit over time. I'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that in this episode, because the
Speaker 1: suits that were used in the final missions were a
Speaker 1: little different from the earlier ones, but overall they were
Speaker 1: mostly kept to the same design once you got to
Speaker 1: the block to Apollo missions after the canceled Block one design.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to talk a bit about the
Speaker 1: p l s S, which, depending upon what source you're reading,
Speaker 1: either stands for portable life support system or primary life
Speaker 1: support system, but in the case of Apollo, it really
Speaker 1: means the backpack. This is the life support system that
Speaker 1: attached to the suit and allowed astronauts like Neil Armstrong
Speaker 1: to you know, gallivan around on the Moon without being
Speaker 1: connected by a life support umbilical tether to you know,
Speaker 1: like the lunar module. The p l S S would
Speaker 1: provide the pressurization needed inside the suit as well as
Speaker 1: the oxygen that the astronauts breathe. The ability to scrub
Speaker 1: c O two from the suit also very important, and
Speaker 1: it also acted as a cooling system to help with
Speaker 1: temperature control with the water cooling. So in addition, astronauts
Speaker 1: on the Moon also had an Oxygen Purge System or OPS,
Speaker 1: which stood in as an emergency backup should the p
Speaker 1: l s S fail. So while it's as oxygen purge
Speaker 1: system and it makes it sound like you're getting rid
Speaker 1: of all your oxygen, it was a secondary oxygen source,
Speaker 1: but it only gave the astronauts really enough time to
Speaker 1: be able to return to the lunar module and then
Speaker 1: connect their suits back to the module's life support system
Speaker 1: if things really went you know, pear shaped. The p
Speaker 1: L S S started off in development in nineteen six one,
Speaker 1: nearly a decade before one would be used on the Moon,
Speaker 1: and that was necessary because we were learning so much
Speaker 1: about what would be needed in order to make a
Speaker 1: Moon mission successful. So while development was begun back then,
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff we learned would mean we'd
Speaker 1: have to change designs. For one thing, engineers learned that
Speaker 1: the metabolic requirements to get stuff done in space were
Speaker 1: really way higher than what was initially estimated, which meant
Speaker 1: astronauts were having to put forth a lot more effort
Speaker 1: than was originally guessed, and that meant that the life
Speaker 1: support says STEMS would need to keep up with that
Speaker 1: in order to supply the necessary oxygen and keep the
Speaker 1: astronauts body temperature at an acceptable level. But how do
Speaker 1: you cool off the water circulating through the suit. If
Speaker 1: you remember, a an inner layer of the suit had
Speaker 1: plastic tubes essentially through which water would run and carry
Speaker 1: body heat away. Well, you've got to get rid of
Speaker 1: that heat, right, you have to have some sort of
Speaker 1: heat exchange in order for the water to cool down again.
Speaker 1: Otherwise eventually you're just going to be running body temperature
Speaker 1: level water or hotter through the suit, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: help you with maintaining a right temperature. Well, in this case,
Speaker 1: the answer ended up being a plate that to the
Speaker 1: naked eye seemed like it was a solid plate, but
Speaker 1: in fact it had microscopic pours in that plate, so
Speaker 1: warm water from the cooling system would fill up those
Speaker 1: pores just a little bit, not a whole lot of water,
Speaker 1: and then it would just boil off into space. And
Speaker 1: because boiling is an endothermic reaction, it actually carried heat
Speaker 1: away from the system, and that would cool the water
Speaker 1: that remained, uh, and some of that water would just
Speaker 1: freeze in those pores, effectively sealing the pores. But then
Speaker 1: this water would get warmed by the cooling system or
Speaker 1: the gas circulating system, and the process would repeat itself,
Speaker 1: and it would continuously cool as long as you had
Speaker 1: enough water running in the system, and you weren't losing
Speaker 1: a ton of it, you know, all at once or anything.
Speaker 1: It was little bits, so it could run for a
Speaker 1: while before being depleted. The invention would end up being
Speaker 1: used in many future space technologies, including the International Space Station,
Speaker 1: so not just for space suits. Now, I mentioned that
Speaker 1: the p LSS had an oxygen supply, which is obviously
Speaker 1: a necessary component for a life support system for a
Speaker 1: human being, and this was pure oxygen as opposed to
Speaker 1: the mix of gases that we breathe here on Earth.
Speaker 1: A typical lungfull down here on the planet is nitrogen
Speaker 1: twenty one oxygen and then everything else like argonne, carbon dioxide,
Speaker 1: and some trace elements. All of that is less than
Speaker 1: a percentage point each. However, in a low pressure environment,
Speaker 1: going with this kind of mixture could lead to a
Speaker 1: dangerous situation in which you don't have enough of a
Speaker 1: concentration of O two in the astronauts lungs and their blood.
Speaker 1: So most space life support systems actually rely on a
Speaker 1: supply of pure oxygen instead. Oh an interesting fact, the
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle and the International Space Station have or you know,
Speaker 1: in the case of the Space Shuttle had internal atmospheres
Speaker 1: that mirrored Earth's atmospheres, and for that reason, astronauts dawning
Speaker 1: spacesuits for a n e v A first had to
Speaker 1: engage in a bit of pre breathe the activity, which
Speaker 1: is somewhat confusing, right, I mean, it's a weird thing
Speaker 1: to say, but what it means is that they had
Speaker 1: to strap on a mask and breathe pure oxygen for
Speaker 1: like a period of like four hours in some cases
Speaker 1: before getting into the space suit and relying on the
Speaker 1: spacesuits life support system. And the whole reason for doing
Speaker 1: that was to have a gradual process to remove nitrogen
Speaker 1: from the astronauts blood, which in turn would reduce the
Speaker 1: chance that the astronaut would get the bends once heading
Speaker 1: into the low pressure environment of outer space, just like
Speaker 1: you would see with someone who is you know, deep
Speaker 1: sea diving. All right, tangent over, let's get back to
Speaker 1: the p l s S. Well, it turns out that
Speaker 1: we humans, you know, we breathe an oxygen and we
Speaker 1: breathe out carbon dioxide among some other stuff. It's not
Speaker 1: just pure CEO two. And if we have a significant
Speaker 1: build up of c O two in our environment, and
Speaker 1: by significant I mean if CEO two levels rise up
Speaker 1: to be about eight percent of what we're breathing, well
Speaker 1: we can't breathe proper. Really it actually it becomes toxic,
Speaker 1: and obviously that's a problem, potentially a deadly one. So
Speaker 1: there had to be a way to remove c O
Speaker 1: two from the suit. So you can think of it
Speaker 1: as there being one port into which pure oxygen flows in,
Speaker 1: and there's another port where c O two, mix of
Speaker 1: c O two and other stuff could exit the suit.
Speaker 1: And then you would have a scrubbing system consisting of
Speaker 1: tanks holding a substance called lithium hydrox side and that
Speaker 1: would do the job of scrubbing CEO two. You see,
Speaker 1: c O two and lithium hydrox side have a chemical
Speaker 1: reaction together that produces water and lithium carbonate, and it's
Speaker 1: pretty darn good at it. You don't need a whole
Speaker 1: lot of uh this, you know, lithium hydroxide to do
Speaker 1: the job to remove a good amount of c O
Speaker 1: two from space. So that's good from a space saving
Speaker 1: and a weight saving standpoint. So a lot of space
Speaker 1: suits and spacecraft use canisters of lithium hydroxide in or
Speaker 1: to remove CEO two from the environment, and then the
Speaker 1: water from that process can be used in other functions,
Speaker 1: either like drinking water or an oxygen generator or even
Speaker 1: you know, the water cooling system and the p l
Speaker 1: s s would also connect through the suit using multiple
Speaker 1: connectors so that everything could work in harmony with each other.
Speaker 1: So obviously like the suit had connectors that docked with
Speaker 1: the p LSS to allow the functions to go through.
Speaker 1: For example, in order to have an effective cooling system,
Speaker 1: you had to connect the water lines in the LCG suit,
Speaker 1: which remember is underneath all these other layers with the
Speaker 1: p l S S, and that meant that you had
Speaker 1: to have these these special things built in so that
Speaker 1: you had these connections without obviously making any weakness points
Speaker 1: in the suit. So NASA developed special connectors that would
Speaker 1: allow this to happen without causing a breach in the system.
Speaker 1: Pretty ingenious really, to have everything hook up like this.
Speaker 1: The suit and p L S S continued to evolve
Speaker 1: over the course of the Apollomys, with later missions taking
Speaker 1: advantage of lessons learned from the earlier ones, and sometimes
Speaker 1: those plans had to change in the process. So, for example,
Speaker 1: while the world marveled at the successful moon landing of
Speaker 1: Apollo eleven, NASA was already planning ahead to create systems
Speaker 1: that would allow for longer operation on the Moon, which
Speaker 1: obviously necessitated more consideration for life support, and to that end,
Speaker 1: they planned to make p L S S units that
Speaker 1: could provide life support functions for longer durations. However, budget
Speaker 1: constraints meant that some of those plans got cut that
Speaker 1: couldn't afford to do all of them. What was to
Speaker 1: be a larger secondary life support system got scrapped because
Speaker 1: there just wasn't money in the budget to have that
Speaker 1: so what takes its place. Well, it was what was
Speaker 1: called a buddy life support system or b l s S,
Speaker 1: and I bet you can figure out immediately what that means.
Speaker 1: It would allow for someone who had a working life
Speaker 1: support system to connect their suit directly to a second
Speaker 1: astronaut who perhaps had a depleted or malfunctioning p LSS,
Speaker 1: and then the two astronauts could then make their way
Speaker 1: back to the spacecraft, where they would hook into the
Speaker 1: spacecraft's life support system. It kind of makes me think
Speaker 1: of drills in which two scuba divers would share the
Speaker 1: same scuba tank between them in the event of one
Speaker 1: scuba divers tank running out of oxygen or otherwise malfunctioning.
Speaker 1: While astronauts on Apollo missions fourteen through seventeen had the
Speaker 1: system available, fortunately there was never a need to actually
Speaker 1: use it. So the buddy system existed, but no one
Speaker 1: ever had to take advantage of it. It was kind
Speaker 1: of they're just in case now. The last Apollo mission
Speaker 1: of the actual Apollo program had the designation Apollo seventeen
Speaker 1: and was in December of nineteen two. Following that, NASA
Speaker 1: focused on the first American laboratory in orbit around Earth,
Speaker 1: which had the name sky Lab, and in order to
Speaker 1: get stuff, you know, to and from sky Lab, they
Speaker 1: relied upon unused Apollo capsules And I'll have to do
Speaker 1: a full episode about sky Lab in the future. But
Speaker 1: the suits that astronauts wore while aboard sky Lab were
Speaker 1: very similar to the ones that were using the final
Speaker 1: three Apollo missions, called the A seven lb pressure suit.
Speaker 1: The one that Neil Armstrong wore back in Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: was the A seven L, so that one did not
Speaker 1: have the B attached to it, and the Skylab version
Speaker 1: had an extra thermal garment as part of the suit.
Speaker 1: The lunar landing versions of the A seven lb allowed
Speaker 1: for greater mobility and were designed so that astronauts could
Speaker 1: conduct more extensive missions on the Moon's surface, including using
Speaker 1: the lunar rover vehicle, So the suit had to have
Speaker 1: greater flexibility than the older A seven L suits, including
Speaker 1: additional joints built into the suits to allow astronauts to actually,
Speaker 1: you know, sit on a rover and putter around on
Speaker 1: the Moon's surface. It actually kind of makes me think
Speaker 1: of action figures, like there were different types like g
Speaker 1: I Joe action figures had joints at the elbow and knee,
Speaker 1: so you could bend the arms and bend the legs.
Speaker 1: As opposed to action figures from like the original Star
Speaker 1: Wars action figures, they had no joints at the elbows
Speaker 1: or knees, so they had very stiff armed and stiff
Speaker 1: legged movements. Kind of similar to that. These joints were
Speaker 1: made out of molded rubber, kind of like a like
Speaker 1: a bellows almost, and you could find them at the shoulders,
Speaker 1: the elbows, the hips, and the knees. The p l
Speaker 1: s s could supply up to seven hours of life
Speaker 1: support towards the end of the Apollo program, allowing for
Speaker 1: pretty extensive e v A s. The versions worn inside
Speaker 1: the spacecraft and the type Warren and sky Lab were
Speaker 1: not quite as fancy as the lunar versions. NASA chose
Speaker 1: to go with a design for sky Lab that would
Speaker 1: require astronaut to actually be tethered to the Skylab facility
Speaker 1: for life support functions during any sort of e v A,
Speaker 1: so you had that umbilical back to the spacecraft if
Speaker 1: you were doing an e v A at sky Lab
Speaker 1: instead of carrying you know, your own portable life support unit.
Speaker 1: This necessitated a redesign of the front of the suit
Speaker 1: in order to accommodate the umbilical tether in a way
Speaker 1: that wouldn't get in the in the way of the astronaut. Right,
Speaker 1: so you think about it, if you have a hose
Speaker 1: connected to your chest, you wanted to be in a
Speaker 1: spot where it's not going to get in the way
Speaker 1: of your arms if you have to do intricate work
Speaker 1: on say a spacecraft. Um, so, yeah, this was a
Speaker 1: bit of a redesign, and the astronauts would connect the
Speaker 1: other end of the tether to a life support panel
Speaker 1: inside the airlock of Skylab before depressurization. And while you
Speaker 1: could have more than one astronaut go on an e
Speaker 1: v A at once at sky Lab, typically they would
Speaker 1: each connect to their own panel as opposed to sharing
Speaker 1: a panel. The panel had multiple out puts, so you
Speaker 1: could connect more than one tether to a panel, but
Speaker 1: generally speaking, that's not how the astronauts operated. The astronauts
Speaker 1: did have a half hour supply of pure oxygen on
Speaker 1: their suit, just as an emergency backup if for some
Speaker 1: reason the life support connection to the spacecraft had failed.
Speaker 1: The suits had a few other differences from the Apollo versions.
Speaker 1: For one, they had more zippers to allow for easier
Speaker 1: dawning and daffing of the suits and zero g uh.
Speaker 1: That did come at the cost of some mobility, but
Speaker 1: since the Skylab astronauts wouldn't be going on joy rides
Speaker 1: on the lunar rover, it didn't matter as much to
Speaker 1: NASA that they wouldn't be able to, you know, like
Speaker 1: bend at the waist. They also had fewer layers of
Speaker 1: thermal protection than the Apollo suits. They were using slightly
Speaker 1: different materials in a new arrangement that still provided thermal protection,
Speaker 1: so it's not like they got rid of it, they
Speaker 1: just found a more efficient way of doing it without
Speaker 1: needing as many layers of material. There were only three
Speaker 1: crew as in a cruise people going on them. Skyline
Speaker 1: missions are only three they had astronauts actually go to
Speaker 1: sky Lab, with the first one in May nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: The last one happened in November nineteen seventy three to
Speaker 1: February nineteen seventy four. Nine astronauts would visit the sky
Speaker 1: Lab Across all three of these missions, divided up between
Speaker 1: the three. That is, so three astronauts per mission Across
Speaker 1: these three missions, astronauts spent a total of a hundred
Speaker 1: seventy one days aboard sky Lab. The longest of the
Speaker 1: three missions was for eighty four days. The cruise traveled
Speaker 1: to and from Skylab. As I said, with repurposed Apollo
Speaker 1: command modules on repurposed launch vehicles that you know, we're
Speaker 1: meant for the Apollo program. But the Apollo program ended
Speaker 1: and they still had these, so they're like, well, let's
Speaker 1: use them, um, and so the Apollo capsule, the command
Speaker 1: capsule would dock at one end of the sky Lab. Clearly,
Speaker 1: they didn't have the lunar module, there was no need
Speaker 1: for that, so that part was not attached to the spacecraft. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the living quarters of sky Lab were palatial compared to
Speaker 1: the Apollo capsule. Astronauts actually, we're using a converted fuel
Speaker 1: tank of a Saturn S for b rocket stage to
Speaker 1: act as their living quarters, which meant that they had
Speaker 1: an internal space of twelve thousand, seven hundred fifty cubic
Speaker 1: feet or three hundred sixty one cubic meters of space.
Speaker 1: The Apollo capsule was just two hundred eighteen cubic feet
Speaker 1: or six point one seven cubic meters, so an enormous difference.
Speaker 1: I imagine that when it came time to, you know,
Speaker 1: use the bathroom, it was a lot easier to get
Speaker 1: some space between you and the other astronauts. After that,
Speaker 1: the Soviets were the only people sending crews up into
Speaker 1: space using the Soyuz capsule. In nine, the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and America conducted some joint missions, with the Soviets in
Speaker 1: a Soyuz capsule and the Americans were in the final
Speaker 1: Apollo capsule and the two spacecraft docked with each other
Speaker 1: in orbit. The two crews worked together on several experiments
Speaker 1: before the spacecraft separated and they both returned to Earth safely.
Speaker 1: So this was the Apollo Soyu's mission, not officially part
Speaker 1: of the Apollo program, but using the final Apollo capsule,
Speaker 1: and then the United States kind of hit a dry spell.
Speaker 1: The Soviets continued to launch Soyu's capsules into space, working
Speaker 1: on small Soviet space stations under the name Salute, but
Speaker 1: for the USA the crude missions would be on hold
Speaker 1: until the Space Shuttle was ready to launch, which had
Speaker 1: a few delays. It was finally ready in ninety one.
Speaker 1: NASA had hoped to use the Shuttle to help boost
Speaker 1: sky Lab into a higher orbit and keep Skylab going.
Speaker 1: But because of the delays in the Space Shuttle program,
Speaker 1: that opportunity went away. Uh sky Labs orbit deteriorated, and
Speaker 1: then it broke apart upon re entering the air's atmosphere
Speaker 1: in nine so there was no way of prolonging that mission.
Speaker 1: But now we're getting into the next era of space suits,
Speaker 1: the Space Shuttle era. When we come back, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about how those suits worked and what was different from
Speaker 1: the Apollo era suits. But first let's take this quick break.
Speaker 1: The Space Shuttle era does not have a single suit
Speaker 1: that we can point to and say this is what
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle suits were like. There are actually a few
Speaker 1: different ones, and of course there's a difference between the
Speaker 1: suits that were worn inside the Space Shuttle for normal
Speaker 1: operations as opposed for the stuff like take off and landing,
Speaker 1: and then the stuff worn for e v A S
Speaker 1: or extra vehicular activities you know, going out into space.
Speaker 1: But let's start at the beginning. The first mission, STS one,
Speaker 1: which launched on April twel had two astronauts wearing suits
Speaker 1: that were based largely on an Air Force flight suit
Speaker 1: designated S ten thirty. These were worn by pilots aboard
Speaker 1: the s R seventy one Blackbird aircraft. That's a long range,
Speaker 1: high speed, and high altitude reconnaissance vehicle. I've actually talked
Speaker 1: about the Blackbird in other episodes of tech Stuff. The
Speaker 1: David Clark Company, long associated with flight and space suits,
Speaker 1: made the variation for the early Space Shuttle cruise, and
Speaker 1: this one became known as the S ten thirty A,
Speaker 1: also known as the Shuttle Ejection Escape Suit. Now, as
Speaker 1: that name suggests, the suit was intended to protect astronauts
Speaker 1: in the event of an emergency ejection, and they were
Speaker 1: rated to protect an astronaut up to an altitude of
Speaker 1: eighty thousand feet and the speed of mock two point seven,
Speaker 1: which is a big yalza. So let's talk about that
Speaker 1: for a second to get our minds wrapped around what
Speaker 1: this means. So, as you climb in the atmosphere, the
Speaker 1: air pressure drops, which makes sense, right after all, on
Speaker 1: the ground, you've got the pressure of all that atmosphere
Speaker 1: pressing down on you. But as you go higher, you
Speaker 1: have less atmosphere above you, and so there's less pressure
Speaker 1: pushing down on you. At eighty thousand feet, the air
Speaker 1: pressure is point four zero six pounds per square inch.
Speaker 1: Temperature is a bit fiddly when it comes to altitudes.
Speaker 1: The temperature drops off as you climb up to a point,
Speaker 1: but then as you hit the stratosphere, the temperature actually
Speaker 1: starts to go up as you climb, and then as
Speaker 1: you get beyond the stratosphere, the temperature plunges again no joke,
Speaker 1: But at any thousand feet you're looking at temperatures of
Speaker 1: nearly negative sixty two Fahrenheits, So the suit has to
Speaker 1: protect against both the low pressure and the low temperature.
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about mock two point seven. Some folks
Speaker 1: reduce mock to mean a multiple of the speed of sound,
Speaker 1: so if you're going mock three, you're going three times
Speaker 1: the speed of sound, which is only part of the picture,
Speaker 1: because the actual explanation of mock is more complicated. And
Speaker 1: part of that is because the nature of the speed
Speaker 1: of sound is more complicated because sound travels at a
Speaker 1: speed that's dependent upon the medium through which it travels. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, sound travels at different speeds at different conditions,
Speaker 1: and those conditions can include things like temperature, so it
Speaker 1: will travel at different speed at sea level at standard
Speaker 1: temperature than it will at eight feet. So mock actually
Speaker 1: describes the ratio of the flow velocity of some fluid
Speaker 1: like air compared to the speed of sound through that
Speaker 1: particular medium. For shorthand, you could say it's like a multiplier.
Speaker 1: You know, you could say, oh, it's multiplied by the
Speaker 1: speed of sound. But just know that when you really
Speaker 1: dig down, it gets a little more complicated than that. Now,
Speaker 1: your typical commercial aircraft travels at a speed of around
Speaker 1: mock zero point eight, So mock two point seven is
Speaker 1: wicked fast. It's kind of like around you know, more
Speaker 1: than two thousand miles per hour or approximately three thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred thirty four kilometers per hour. So the suit
Speaker 1: needed to protect astronauts against the forces they would encounter
Speaker 1: should they have to eject at that speed, which is
Speaker 1: pretty crazy stuff. Now, this version of the Space Shuttle
Speaker 1: had ejection seats for the pilot and copilot, and as
Speaker 1: they said, those early Shuttle flights only had two astronauts
Speaker 1: each to make certain that the shuttle was operating at
Speaker 1: the expected levels and testing it out to make certain
Speaker 1: it could go into operational status. Now, keep in mind.
Speaker 1: The purpose of the Shuttle was to serve as a
Speaker 1: reusable vehicle that we could take to low Earth orbit
Speaker 1: and then come back to Earth. So the injector seats
Speaker 1: and the escape suits or standard issue for STS one
Speaker 1: through STS four, the first four test missions of the
Speaker 1: Space Shuttle UH Space Shuttle Columbia. I should add the
Speaker 1: suits would connect to the shuttle for the purposes of
Speaker 1: life support. And if you ever look at a photo
Speaker 1: of an astronaut wearing one of these, you'd say that
Speaker 1: is non attractive space suit because they kind of look
Speaker 1: like lumpy potatoes. They weren't designed for use outside the
Speaker 1: shuttle in space, so they lacked the various layers of
Speaker 1: thermal protection and teflon coding and whatnot to protect against
Speaker 1: like micro meteoroids and the extremes of temperature that you
Speaker 1: would find in outer space. There would be no need
Speaker 1: to worry about that stuff until a bit later with
Speaker 1: the first Shuttle based e v A s. The pressure
Speaker 1: suits did have bladders in the legs, so they were
Speaker 1: partially pressurized. They're pressurized in the lower body, and again
Speaker 1: this was to provide the pressure needed to keep blood
Speaker 1: from pooling in the lower extremities during times of extreme acceleration.
Speaker 1: So this helps protect against blackouts. Right, if all your
Speaker 1: blood starts rushing to the lower part of your your body,
Speaker 1: then there's not enough in your brain to keep you,
Speaker 1: you know, conscious. So this pressure helped prevent against that.
Speaker 1: It helped kind of put enough pressure on the lower
Speaker 1: limbs so that blood couldn't pool down in the lower body.
Speaker 1: I talked about it a bit in our previous episodes.
Speaker 1: After the first four test flight missions of the Space Shuttle,
Speaker 1: NASA made a few changes, and for one thing, they
Speaker 1: got rid of the ejection seats in the Shuttle, which
Speaker 1: meant that the suits really weren't a fit anymore either,
Speaker 1: because the whole reason to have the suits was as
Speaker 1: a protective outfit in the event of having to eject
Speaker 1: out of the Shuttle, so they got rid of them
Speaker 1: starting with STS five, the fifth flight of the Space
Speaker 1: Shuttle Columbia and the first operational flight, meaning the first
Speaker 1: to actually be considered more than a test flight. This
Speaker 1: was one that was delivering a payload to outer space.
Speaker 1: The cruise on that vessel didn't wear pressurized suits during
Speaker 1: takeoff and landing or launch and re entry. Slash landing.
Speaker 1: They had simple flight suit. They were blue in color,
Speaker 1: They weren't pressurized. They did have helmets to protect their
Speaker 1: noggins for launch and re entry and landing, but they
Speaker 1: weren't wearing any sort of pressurized suit with life support.
Speaker 1: NASA was sort of following the old Soviet model, which
Speaker 1: for many years did not have cosmonauts wearing pressurized suits
Speaker 1: until there was this tragic decompression accident that changed things.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, a similar tragedy would change NASA's
Speaker 1: approach a few years later. Now, I don't really have
Speaker 1: much to say about the blue flight suits because they
Speaker 1: didn't really represent a lot of tech, and really they
Speaker 1: showed that NASA had a high level of confidence in
Speaker 1: the safety and operation of the Shuttle. But I can
Speaker 1: talk about the new extra vehicular Activity or e v
Speaker 1: A space suits. NASA planned to have two astronauts go
Speaker 1: on a spacewalk during STS five, but some health issues
Speaker 1: delayed that, and then a technical error in one of
Speaker 1: the suits put those plans on ice until STS six,
Speaker 1: the sixth mission that would end up being the maiden
Speaker 1: flight of the Shuttle Challenger. And yeah, both Columbia and
Speaker 1: Challenger have tragic ends, but STS six was a success,
Speaker 1: and during that mission, astronauts put the new extra vehicular
Speaker 1: Mobility Unit or EMU to the test. Let's talk about those.
Speaker 1: So one big change with the e m U or
Speaker 1: EMU was what was worn underneath it, specifically the mag
Speaker 1: or MG that stands for maximum absorbancy garment. And if
Speaker 1: you think that sounds like a diaper, it depends. Now
Speaker 1: you're on the right track. Gone were the days of
Speaker 1: the urine collection devices because those were meant to work
Speaker 1: with male astronauts and the space program had finally evolved
Speaker 1: beyond being a men only endeavor. After this, you know garment,
Speaker 1: you would slide on a one piece thermal garment called
Speaker 1: the Thermal Control undergarment. It's kind like a body suit
Speaker 1: or long John's. And then came the Liquid Cooling and
Speaker 1: Ventilation Garment or l c VG, similar to the one
Speaker 1: that was worn by Apollo astronauts. This is the thing
Speaker 1: that allows cool water to run through tubes that are
Speaker 1: against the garment and help, you know, maintain a good
Speaker 1: body temperature for the astronaut. The suit had a few
Speaker 1: other pieces to it. The two big ones were the
Speaker 1: lower torso assembly or l t A, and then you
Speaker 1: had the hard upper torso or h U T hut
Speaker 1: so as the name implies, the hard upper torso. First
Speaker 1: of all, it was for the upper torso so like
Speaker 1: the chest and shoulders and stomach even and it had
Speaker 1: a rigid body structure made out of fiberglass which could
Speaker 1: hold in the pressure of the suit and not have
Speaker 1: it balloon outward. So instead of using like a tough,
Speaker 1: tight material to restrain ballooning, this was just a you know,
Speaker 1: a hard material. It didn't flex in all. UH the
Speaker 1: arms of the suit, the helmet, and the lower torso
Speaker 1: assembly all would connect to the h UT, as did
Speaker 1: the p l SS UH, the primary life support system
Speaker 1: officially known as that now, and the display controls module
Speaker 1: would also mount on the front. This is the sort
Speaker 1: of Darth Vader looking collection of UH indicators and and controls. Also,
Speaker 1: the HUT would hold a bag filled with drinkable liquid
Speaker 1: with a straw that would extend up to the helmet
Speaker 1: of the astronaut, because even in space it's important to
Speaker 1: stay hydrated. Ultimately, NASA only produced three sizes of the HUT,
Speaker 1: which meant, in turn that the organization had a limited
Speaker 1: number of choices when it came to which astronauts would
Speaker 1: be able to go on e v A s, because
Speaker 1: the suit was not a one size fits all kind
Speaker 1: of deal, nor was NASA planning on custom building a
Speaker 1: suit for every astronaut. The exterior of the EMU is
Speaker 1: bright white, part to reflect heat and partly so that
Speaker 1: the astronaut is extremely visible against the blackness of space.
Speaker 1: And in total, the suit has fourteen layers, from the
Speaker 1: liquid cooling layers are closest to the astronaut skin, to
Speaker 1: a pressure suit layer, to a restraint layer to keep
Speaker 1: that pressure in check, to a neopreen layer to hold
Speaker 1: everything in, to seven layers of micro meteoroid and thermal
Speaker 1: protective material, and an outer layer of kevlar nomes and gortex. Alright,
Speaker 1: so an astronaut going on a n e v A
Speaker 1: would first put on their you know there under suit,
Speaker 1: but then they would put on the l t A
Speaker 1: the lower half of this suit, the leggings and boots
Speaker 1: and you know stuff that comes up to the hips essentially,
Speaker 1: and this half is the soft half. It's the pliable
Speaker 1: half at least when it's not pressurized. And then they
Speaker 1: would put on the hut, the upper half and seal
Speaker 1: those two together. They lock in together and have a
Speaker 1: ceiling layer that was used necessary obviously you want to
Speaker 1: keep a seal airtight. Then they would put on their
Speaker 1: snoopy cap. This is a close fitting head covering that
Speaker 1: incorporates speakers and a microphone that allows for communications with others.
Speaker 1: Then they would seal on the gloves and helmet. Then
Speaker 1: the suit would pressure eye, the p L S S
Speaker 1: would activate, and then you would have your astronaut ready
Speaker 1: to go. Not only took around fifteen minutes to get
Speaker 1: into or out of the suit from beginning to end,
Speaker 1: but the process of going on an e V A
Speaker 1: would require a lot more prep work than just getting
Speaker 1: into gear. Like you had the whole pre breathe exercise
Speaker 1: you had to do too, alright, So connecting the p
Speaker 1: L S S to the suit, there was another element
Speaker 1: on the e M you called the electrical harness or
Speaker 1: e e H or EMU electrical harness. This was worn
Speaker 1: inside the suit, but with connections to link the p
Speaker 1: L S S to the stuit itself, so all the
Speaker 1: systems would be interconnected. The helmet had various visors to
Speaker 1: protect against stuff like sunlight. It also had mounted headlamps
Speaker 1: and could accommodate a TV camera transmitter as well, so
Speaker 1: that you could get that glorious first person astronaut view.
Speaker 1: While the David Clark Company made the pressurized suits for
Speaker 1: the early test flights of the Space Shuttle, the e
Speaker 1: m U was the product of two other companies. One
Speaker 1: was Hamilton's Standard and the other was I L C. Dover.
Speaker 1: And while the first real use of the e MU
Speaker 1: was aboard the STS six after the failed attempt on
Speaker 1: STS five, I should also add that they actually had
Speaker 1: one of these suits on STS four during one of
Speaker 1: the test flights, and they practiced the process of putting
Speaker 1: the suit on and taking it off in zero G
Speaker 1: to make sure that there weren't any other issues that
Speaker 1: need to be worked out. They didn't take it on
Speaker 1: a n E v A, they didn't leave the shuttle,
Speaker 1: but they did practice getting into and out of it.
Speaker 1: The e MU design would evolve a little bit over
Speaker 1: the years, but to this day there are still e
Speaker 1: m U s aboard the Internet Space Station. And when
Speaker 1: you think about that, like how old these things are,
Speaker 1: that's something right. The ones they're actually have a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a modular design, which gives astronauts the
Speaker 1: ability to change the fitting slightly, which helps them accommodate
Speaker 1: different body sizes and types. At least to an extent,
Speaker 1: the hut still kind of limits things a bit in
Speaker 1: that regard. I should also mention that these things are
Speaker 1: pretty heavy, at least back here on Earth. They're heavy
Speaker 1: in space. You don't really have to worry about it. Wait,
Speaker 1: it's not so much a thing you gotta worry when
Speaker 1: you're in, you know, a microgravity environment. But if you
Speaker 1: were to suit up down here, you probably wouldn't be
Speaker 1: going on any sprints or anything like that. That's because
Speaker 1: the Shuttle version of the e v A weighed in
Speaker 1: and around two pounds, around a little less than a hundreds,
Speaker 1: and the version that would be worn aboard the I
Speaker 1: S S was even heftier. That was three nineteen pounds
Speaker 1: or around a hundred. One other thing I want to
Speaker 1: cover before we go to break is the m m
Speaker 1: YOU or manned maneuvering unit. This was a propulsion unit
Speaker 1: that fit over the life support system that you wore
Speaker 1: on your back when you were in an e m U.
Speaker 1: This was kind of like a jet pack for space,
Speaker 1: although not using you know, thrusters with ignited fuel instead
Speaker 1: using nitrogen gas as a propellant. And there were twenty
Speaker 1: four nozzles on the m m U, so you could
Speaker 1: use the combination of nozzles to kind of maneuver your
Speaker 1: way and float through space with this backpack and not
Speaker 1: have any other connection to the spacecraft, like no teather,
Speaker 1: just floating around out there. Uh. You would use a
Speaker 1: hand controls on the MMU to kind of guide where
Speaker 1: you wanted to go. Bruce McCandless did this Ino, and
Speaker 1: there's a famous photo of him looking back at the
Speaker 1: Shuttle with nothing connecting him to the spacecraft as he
Speaker 1: just floats above the Earth. And if I think about
Speaker 1: it too much while I'm looking at that picture, I
Speaker 1: actually start to feel anxiety. Is an incredible photo. The
Speaker 1: MMU was used on only three missions before NASA retired it,
Speaker 1: and the reason the agency sunseted the MMU was the
Speaker 1: same reason that the Blue jumpsuit era would come to
Speaker 1: an end. It would be a disaster that would change everything,
Speaker 1: but we'll talk about that after this quick break. On
Speaker 1: January nine, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart seventy three
Speaker 1: seconds after launch, killing all aboard This was one of
Speaker 1: those big defining moments in history, history in general, not
Speaker 1: just the space industry. For one thing, as a launch,
Speaker 1: multiple news outlets were covering the story live in real time,
Speaker 1: and so the world saw this explosion happen. For another,
Speaker 1: NASA had really promoted this mission heavily, part because a
Speaker 1: high school teacher, Krista, she was part of the crew
Speaker 1: and she would have been the first teacher in space.
Speaker 1: And for that reason, it was something a lot of
Speaker 1: schools were showing live on on televisions. In the whole
Speaker 1: generation of school kids were exposed to this tragic disaster
Speaker 1: in real time. And I mean I was one of them.
Speaker 1: I was ten when it happened. I could do a
Speaker 1: full episode about that mission and what happened as a
Speaker 1: result of that disaster, But for our purposes, let's just
Speaker 1: stick to the suits. NASA grounded the Space Shuttle program
Speaker 1: and conducted a full investigation and evaluation of the program.
Speaker 1: No Space Shuttle missions flew for two years and eight months,
Speaker 1: and when the program returned, so did pressurized flight suits.
Speaker 1: Astronauts had to wear these suits for launch and for
Speaker 1: re entry and landing, so once again they had to
Speaker 1: wear a specific suit for those moments in a mission.
Speaker 1: They were officially called the launch entry suit. These new
Speaker 1: suits would get the nickname pumpkin suits because they were
Speaker 1: bright orange in color, and the thinking was that in
Speaker 1: an emergency evacuation, they would likely be over water and
Speaker 1: the bright orange color would make the suits really easy
Speaker 1: to spot against the ocean. The suits had partial pressurization,
Speaker 1: they were not fully pressurized, so again around the legs
Speaker 1: to prevent blackouts. So similar to the ejection suits that
Speaker 1: were worn in the test flights of the Space Shell
Speaker 1: for Sts one through four, the gloves for the suits
Speaker 1: would actually just zipper onto the suits themselves. They did
Speaker 1: not have like the ring locking mechanism that other suits did.
Speaker 1: They came with a helmet with a polycarbonate face plate
Speaker 1: that could seal onto the neck of the suit. The
Speaker 1: astronauts also wore heavy duty boots in addition to the suit,
Speaker 1: and they had a survival backpack which included stuff like
Speaker 1: a parachute and a life raft, among some other things.
Speaker 1: As space suits go, this one kind of sat between
Speaker 1: the emergency ejection suits of the early Shuttle tests and
Speaker 1: the jumpsuit that astronauts wore up to the Challenger disaster.
Speaker 1: They were kind of smacked out in the middle. These
Speaker 1: suits remained in use until the mid nineties, when NASA
Speaker 1: would replace them with the Advanced Crew Escape Suit or
Speaker 1: ACES a c S. These are also called pumpkin suits
Speaker 1: they also because they're bright orange, but they are puffier
Speaker 1: than the ELIS suits that came before them, so unlike
Speaker 1: the l E S the ACES suits for the later
Speaker 1: spatial era, they were in our full pressure suits. They
Speaker 1: aren't just partially pressurized, so rather than having zippered connections
Speaker 1: for the gloves, the gloves lock on through lock rings,
Speaker 1: much like E m U suits do. They also include
Speaker 1: a liquid cooling mechanism to help with body temperature, so
Speaker 1: we're back to that as well, and the ACES suit
Speaker 1: has a detachable helmet and also comes complete with a
Speaker 1: survival backpack, similar to the l E S. Like the
Speaker 1: l E S, astronauts would wear the ACES suit during
Speaker 1: launch and re entry and landing. It's very similar to
Speaker 1: the so Cool suits that the Russians use. Uh the
Speaker 1: Russians suit helmet is permanently attached to the suit, and
Speaker 1: there's no backpack on the so called suits because there's
Speaker 1: not enough room in a Soyuz capsule to handle one.
Speaker 1: But these are the suits that have been in use
Speaker 1: long after the Shuttle program has come to an end.
Speaker 1: And now let's talk a little bit about some planned suits,
Speaker 1: including a couple that never entered into service. One of
Speaker 1: those was the Constellation space suits. I shouldn't say one
Speaker 1: two of them were Constellation space suits because there were
Speaker 1: two different versions. So the Constellation project was meant to
Speaker 1: pick up where the Space Shuttle was leaving off, with
Speaker 1: the idea being that the new spacecraft would take astronauts
Speaker 1: to and from the International Space Station and ultimately to
Speaker 1: the Moon, hopefully by twenty twenty. This would be the
Speaker 1: Orion spacecraft. And if you are paying attention, you know
Speaker 1: that came and went and no one was going to
Speaker 1: the moon. Well, the Constellation program ultimately got the acts
Speaker 1: after a full review of the program revealed that it
Speaker 1: would be unsuccessful without a substantial increase in the budget.
Speaker 1: But had it gone ahead, we would have seen a
Speaker 1: new type of space suit meant to be worn both
Speaker 1: during critical maneuvers such as during launch and reentry, as
Speaker 1: well as for e v A s. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: astronauts would have an indoor outdoor space suit, and there
Speaker 1: were two planned configurations of this suit. Configuration one would
Speaker 1: have covered most missions with a full pressure suit that
Speaker 1: included a closed loop environmental system allowing for operation in space,
Speaker 1: and like some of the older suits I've talked about,
Speaker 1: this one would connect to the Orion spacecraft's life support
Speaker 1: system through an umbilical tether rather than incorporating its own
Speaker 1: p L s US. The second configuration was planned for
Speaker 1: lunar missions. This was more of a heavy duty one.
Speaker 1: The suit would make use of the same arms, legs, boots, helmet,
Speaker 1: and gloves as Configuration one's suit, but to have a
Speaker 1: different torso section. It would also allow for higher pressure
Speaker 1: within the suit, something that could head off issues like
Speaker 1: decompression sickness, which I mentioned about earlier, the bends, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. While the US discontinued the Constellation program
Speaker 1: in two, NASA continued to develop the Constellation space suit,
Speaker 1: but simultaneously, a different department within NASA was working on
Speaker 1: the Advanced Space Suit project. So you had two different
Speaker 1: space suit programs working at the same time. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about this Advanced Space Suit Project one. The initiative developed
Speaker 1: two designs for e v A suits. The Z one
Speaker 1: and the Z two. The Z one uses a soft
Speaker 1: suit approach, meaning you know, it's mostly pliable when it's
Speaker 1: not pressurized. It has some hard components, but it's mostly fabric.
Speaker 1: Has a large dome shaped helmet attached to the suit.
Speaker 1: Kind of looks like buzz Lightyear. In fact, the white
Speaker 1: suit has like some green lines on it and all
Speaker 1: the pictures of it, so it really does look like
Speaker 1: a buzz light ear suit. And it splits into upper
Speaker 1: and lower torso segments as well as having assembly mechanisms
Speaker 1: for gloves and boots to attach to the suit. The
Speaker 1: Z two has a hard upper torso rather than a
Speaker 1: soft one, so it's similar to the E m U
Speaker 1: suit I mentioned earlier. In addition to the Z one
Speaker 1: and Z two, the projects spawned an updated p l SS.
Speaker 1: This one was called the Next Generation Life Support where
Speaker 1: in g l S complete with an improved method for
Speaker 1: removing carbon dioxide phone the suit's air supply. In sixteen,
Speaker 1: NASA made the decision to combine the information that had
Speaker 1: been learned from the Constellation project as well as the
Speaker 1: Advanced Space Suit Project and create a new one kind
Speaker 1: of like Vultron. All this joining together to find the
Speaker 1: x e m U project ZIMU, I guess or x
Speaker 1: AMU if you prefer uh. This is the specific project
Speaker 1: that the audit found to be behind schedule, to the
Speaker 1: point that the Artemis programming, which we were supposed to
Speaker 1: go back to the Moon by twenty four is not
Speaker 1: going to happen at least not on that timetable. In fact,
Speaker 1: according to the report, these suits will not be ready
Speaker 1: until April at the earliest. That's if everything goes right.
Speaker 1: The report on those suits is available online and it
Speaker 1: is heck and thorough, y'all. In that report, we learned
Speaker 1: that the Constellation suit program cost a hundred thirty five
Speaker 1: points seven million bucks before it came to an end,
Speaker 1: the Advanced Space Suit pro project that costs another fifty
Speaker 1: one point six million dollars, and the x EMU has
Speaker 1: cost so far around two hundred thirty two point eight
Speaker 1: million dollars. I did the math, and that means that
Speaker 1: NASA has spent more than four hundred twenty million dollars
Speaker 1: on the next generation of space suits already four twenty
Speaker 1: NASA is just blazing through that cash, and according to
Speaker 1: the report, it's not even halfway to what will ultimately
Speaker 1: get spent on these suits before they are fully built,
Speaker 1: tested and deployed. Yeza. Still, when you're talking about keeping
Speaker 1: people alive in space, it's obviously it's gonna cost a
Speaker 1: lot of money. But what happened, well, that's complicated. So
Speaker 1: one bit is that there are multiple offices or departments
Speaker 1: within NASA responsible for space suit development. They aren't always
Speaker 1: working on the same projects or with each other, so
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of overlap. Potentially you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of potential wasted effort because it's not a unified approach.
Speaker 1: This doesn't mean that it's always a bad thing, because
Speaker 1: you can often get really good ideas coming out of
Speaker 1: totally different groups that would would have died on the
Speaker 1: vine if it had been a unified project. But it
Speaker 1: does make it more complicated. So like this is like
Speaker 1: when NASA side that the Constellation program and the Advanced
Speaker 1: Space Suit program needed to kind of combine into each other.
Speaker 1: For another. As I mentioned before, NASA is an organization
Speaker 1: that sees a lot of changes every year. For one thing,
Speaker 1: there's always a political battle over NASA's funding. Any agency
Speaker 1: that's dependent upon federal funds is going to find it
Speaker 1: hard to stay on track because support can fluctuate from
Speaker 1: year to year. You might get a year where you
Speaker 1: get more financial support and another year where no one
Speaker 1: is really supporting you, and that makes it really hard
Speaker 1: to stay on task with projects. For another, the head
Speaker 1: of NASA gets their position courtesy of whomever happens to
Speaker 1: be president, so that means leadership and NASA changes fairly regularly,
Speaker 1: and that can mean projects that were in progress might
Speaker 1: end up being put on the back shelf or even
Speaker 1: getting the acts. NASA, I want to add, is an
Speaker 1: incredible agency. There are countless people devoted to the pursuit
Speaker 1: of science and knowledge who are working there. They are innovating,
Speaker 1: they're solving problems that are really spectacular problems. But they
Speaker 1: also have to work in a system that isn't always
Speaker 1: dependable or stable. Right like, things change, priorities change, leadership changes,
Speaker 1: and this sometimes means that something that was in development
Speaker 1: gets taken off development. And when you add to that
Speaker 1: the normal challenges of just trying to create technology with
Speaker 1: all the designing and testing and then the redesigning and
Speaker 1: rebuilding and retesting and all of that effort, particularly for
Speaker 1: technology that's meant to help keep people alive in an
Speaker 1: environment that is trying to kill you, and you can
Speaker 1: see why there are issues. My hope is that we
Speaker 1: will see the x E m U suits emerge. We
Speaker 1: need them, the I S S needs them, and there
Speaker 1: are some cool things that they're supposed to incorporate. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm holding off on going into detail about all that because,
Speaker 1: as we've seen, sometimes stuff that we plan for just
Speaker 1: doesn't pan out, like a feature that was considered to
Speaker 1: be critical ends up getting cut. So I don't want
Speaker 1: to cover all the things that are planned for it.
Speaker 1: I want to wait to see what happens. But believe me,
Speaker 1: if we get to a point where we've got a
Speaker 1: working x E m U suit ready to go into service,
Speaker 1: I will come back to this topic and we will
Speaker 1: do a full episode on it, and that ends our
Speaker 1: journey about the evolution of space suits. So far, I
Speaker 1: didn't really cover the private space suits sector. I might
Speaker 1: do that in a future episode at some point. Um
Speaker 1: It's one that I have mixed feelings about because I
Speaker 1: often feel that people like Elon musk Um dismiss how
Speaker 1: hard this is to do safely and properly. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, there is something to be said about
Speaker 1: having the entire process under the control of a single company.
Speaker 1: So there are advantages to the private space approach that
Speaker 1: a federally funded agency like NASA cannot take advantage of.
Speaker 1: That that much is true. I just don't know that
Speaker 1: musk boasting that he could get it done through SpaceX
Speaker 1: and take care of NASA's space suit problem is really
Speaker 1: that accurate. But who am I to say maybe they'll
Speaker 1: be able to do it. We'll have to wait and see,
Speaker 1: and that's it. If you have suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover on future episodes of tech Stuff, whether it's
Speaker 1: a company, technology, a trend in tech. Maybe it's just
Speaker 1: something you want to know more about, let me know
Speaker 1: on Twitter the handle for the show it's tech Stuff
Speaker 1: h s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
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