Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm ad executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and I've promised you
Speaker 1: that I would have another follow up to our space
Speaker 1: Suits episode which published on Monday, and this is it.
Speaker 1: So on Monday's episode, we looked at the early history
Speaker 1: of space suits, from the era of flight suits before
Speaker 1: the Space Race to the suits worn by cosmonauts and
Speaker 1: astronauts up to the beginning of the Apollo program. And
Speaker 1: I want to mention a couple of things before we continue.
Speaker 1: One is that the Soviets stopped using flight suits for
Speaker 1: a while in their so used capsules when they were
Speaker 1: first doing those, they decided to allow cosmonauts more freedom
Speaker 1: of movement and so they weren't wearing pressure suits and
Speaker 1: uh and and your rescue suits for a couple of missions.
Speaker 1: They did have a suit that was a more advanced
Speaker 1: version of the Burri Cutt suit that was used for
Speaker 1: the first Soviet e v A, which was only used
Speaker 1: up between two se Us missions where the two capsules
Speaker 1: docked with each other, and the that cosmonauts were able
Speaker 1: to meet one another when when they launched two missions
Speaker 1: in close succession. Beyond that, they went without pressure suits
Speaker 1: until there was a tragic accident in which there was
Speaker 1: a depressurization, a rapid depressurization incident that resulted in the
Speaker 1: death of all three cosmonauts aboard a mission. That then
Speaker 1: prompted the USSR to have a new requirement or the
Speaker 1: Soviets to wear a pressure suit on the way up,
Speaker 1: and that became the so called cosmos are so called
Speaker 1: k and that basic suit has been in use ever since.
Speaker 1: So it's a pressure suit that's meant to be worn
Speaker 1: inside a space craft, particularly during critical elements like if
Speaker 1: you are taking off or landing, not necessarily, uh, in
Speaker 1: just the normal operations. Once you're out in space, you
Speaker 1: can get out of the suit. But yeah, that's still
Speaker 1: to this day the suits that are being used by
Speaker 1: Russia no longer the Soviet Union. Obviously. Another thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention is that while the space suit evolved
Speaker 1: from the flight suit, I don't mean to suggest that
Speaker 1: flight suits stopped evolving in that process. They definitely kept
Speaker 1: evolving over time. So we had separate branches of evolution
Speaker 1: here and the flight suits of today are incredibly sophisticated
Speaker 1: and in some ways similar to space suits, but not identical.
Speaker 1: And I also mentioned a couple of materials in that
Speaker 1: previous episode, like no max, but I didn't really go
Speaker 1: into detail about what that is. So no Max is
Speaker 1: a proprietary material that the company DuPont developed in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, and it is similar in many ways to nylon,
Speaker 1: but it's a little more rigid, and most importantly, it
Speaker 1: is fire and heat resistant, so it's been used in
Speaker 1: uniforms and outfits meant for all sorts of folks who
Speaker 1: work in dangerous environments and situations, like race car drivers, firefighters,
Speaker 1: and astronauts. No Mix is a polymer which is a
Speaker 1: type of long chain molecule where you have the same
Speaker 1: repeated units chained together over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: But it's a special kind of polymer. It's called an
Speaker 1: aromatic polyamide polymer. And you might think that means this
Speaker 1: fabric must smell nice, but it's not that kind of aromatic.
Speaker 1: In chemistry, aromatic means that the molecules in the chain
Speaker 1: connect as a series of rings, rather than as a
Speaker 1: straight line of atoms that are chained together, and the
Speaker 1: word polyamide means that these strings of molecules connect together
Speaker 1: to form chains. Of these chains and the molecular structure
Speaker 1: of no mix makes it a fairly tough material. In fact, kevlar,
Speaker 1: which was also developed by DuPont, is a type of
Speaker 1: aromatic polyomide, although it is in many ways very different
Speaker 1: from nomex, but it shares some of the same molecular
Speaker 1: structural components. So no Max has some interesting properties. One
Speaker 1: is that no MAX will burn if it is exposed
Speaker 1: to a heat source and you know there's oxygen and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. If the triangle is there,
Speaker 1: no MAX will burn. But if it is removed from
Speaker 1: the heat source, then no Max will just stop burning.
Speaker 1: Thus it is is flame resistant, is not flame proof,
Speaker 1: but is flame resistant. Also, it doesn't conduct heat very well,
Speaker 1: so a suit of nomas can serve as a layer
Speaker 1: of protection against heat. All right, So let's get back
Speaker 1: to our story. So, as I mentioned in our last
Speaker 1: episode on this situation on the subject, I should say,
Speaker 1: the space suits developed for the Gemini or Geminy project
Speaker 1: were intended to serve as a sort of stop gap
Speaker 1: for the early part of the Apollo program. There were
Speaker 1: planned missions that would test various elements of the Apollo
Speaker 1: spacecraft and the launch vehicles and space suits and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and some of the early ones
Speaker 1: would not involve going beyond orbit or exiting the capsule. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the Apollo program, while the goal was
Speaker 1: to get to the Moon, it's not like we were
Speaker 1: supposed to be aiming straight for the Moon right at
Speaker 1: the get go. It was all in stages so that
Speaker 1: we could learn more, use what we learned to build
Speaker 1: upon that, and then continue from there. So the A
Speaker 1: one C space suit, which was based off the Gemin
Speaker 1: E or Gemini G three C model suit, was to
Speaker 1: serve for this first block of Apollo missions, also known
Speaker 1: as Block one. Now, I think I might have said
Speaker 1: that was based off the G four C suit in
Speaker 1: Monday's episode, and if I did, that's totally a mistake
Speaker 1: on my part. That's on me. The G four C
Speaker 1: suit was the Gemini suit that was designed for astronauts
Speaker 1: to go on spacewalks on extra vehicular activities or e
Speaker 1: v A s. The G three C suit had fewer
Speaker 1: layers of the G four and was slightly more maneuverable
Speaker 1: as a result of that, and it was only intended
Speaker 1: to be used inside of spacecraft. It wasn't rated to
Speaker 1: be used outside, So the A one C was similar
Speaker 1: in design to that G three C. The original first
Speaker 1: mission had the designation of A S two O four
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to see Gus Grissom, who had
Speaker 1: actually played a really big part in the development of
Speaker 1: space suits, and Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee test
Speaker 1: the Apollo capsule in Earth orbit in a mission that
Speaker 1: was planned to last up to two weeks. But tragically,
Speaker 1: during a launch simulation test, there was this intense fire
Speaker 1: that erupted inside the capsule and all three astronauts were
Speaker 1: strapped in in the capsule, and so they all three
Speaker 1: died as a result of this. The A one C
Speaker 1: suit was made out of nylon, which kind of lacked
Speaker 1: the heat and flame resistance that you would find with
Speaker 1: no MAX and it appeared as though the astronauts had
Speaker 1: attempted to follow emergency procedures to open the hatch of
Speaker 1: the capsule to escape, but they were not able to
Speaker 1: do so. The intensity of the fire kept the rescue
Speaker 1: crew at bay for several crucial minutes uh and this
Speaker 1: was exacerbated by a fear that that fire could put
Speaker 1: intentionally lead to an explosion, perhaps even involving the launch
Speaker 1: vehicle in addition to the capsule itself. So this was
Speaker 1: a terrible tragedy. In the wake of that loss, NASA
Speaker 1: canceled the rest of what was supposed to be the
Speaker 1: Block one crude missions, as in the missions with cruise
Speaker 1: in them. And as they crude, I do mean c
Speaker 1: R E W E D, not crude as in c
Speaker 1: R U D E. The A one C suit would
Speaker 1: never see use in outer space, and from that tragedy,
Speaker 1: NASA saw the need to make sure that the future
Speaker 1: space suits provided better protection against heat and fire. The
Speaker 1: second block of Apollo missions would need suits designed for
Speaker 1: extra vehicular activity, because again the goal was to go
Speaker 1: to the Moon and to get out and walk around.
Speaker 1: So these suits would consist I mean, it really depends
Speaker 1: on how you look at it, but two main components.
Speaker 1: But honestly, that's you could You could argue that the
Speaker 1: space suit was two components, or you could argue it
Speaker 1: was lots of them. But you had the pressure suit
Speaker 1: assembly or the p S A, and you had the
Speaker 1: Portable Life Support System or p l s S, which
Speaker 1: is also known as the backpack because it was worn
Speaker 1: that way. Collectively, this entire get up was called the
Speaker 1: extra vehicular Mobility Unit or EMU. But we can break
Speaker 1: this down even further, So let's get to talking about
Speaker 1: these different components. What made them up all these different layers,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot to go through. First, you had
Speaker 1: the underwear. Now, as one source put it, it was
Speaker 1: quote heavy duty space boxer briefs end quote that we're
Speaker 1: also and I quote highly absorbent, and they had a
Speaker 1: urine collection component to them, which I will get to
Speaker 1: a bit later, because, oh boy, when you think about
Speaker 1: the people who pioneered space travel and you realize some
Speaker 1: of the stuff they had to go through, you really
Speaker 1: get a different kind of appreciation for some of their
Speaker 1: let's let's call it sacrifices, you know, as far as
Speaker 1: comfort and sanitation go. Next came an LCG or liquid
Speaker 1: cooling garment. So this undergarment suit was made out of
Speaker 1: nylon and it used water in clear plastic tubing to
Speaker 1: cool the astronauts. So imagine a suit that has this
Speaker 1: this tubing. It's kind of like a water cooled PC
Speaker 1: in a way. You have this what the system of
Speaker 1: tubes that transports water all over the body of the
Speaker 1: astronaut in order to carry heat away from the astronauts.
Speaker 1: So the air conditioned suits of the Mercury and Gemini
Speaker 1: eras really failed to keep astronauts at a comfortable temperature.
Speaker 1: It became clear that astronauts were putting forth a lot
Speaker 1: more effort in their activities in space and generating a
Speaker 1: lot more heat. And then the fact that these suits
Speaker 1: were so good at insulating meant that heat would get
Speaker 1: trapped in there as well as the heat of just
Speaker 1: the various electrical components inside the suit that was adding
Speaker 1: to it, and air conditioning just wasn't cutting it. So
Speaker 1: the new system would circulate water through these tubes under
Speaker 1: the suit to carry body heat away so that the
Speaker 1: astronauts didn't get too hot and sweaty. Obviously, sweating was
Speaker 1: a problem too, because if you're wearing a helmet, that
Speaker 1: sweat can start making the helmet fog up, and then
Speaker 1: you've also got water vapor issues. So this was all necessary.
Speaker 1: Stuff Connected to the LCG was a bio belt which
Speaker 1: was made out of a material called cotton duck. It's
Speaker 1: it's kind of like canvas, like heavy canvas. It feels
Speaker 1: kind of like that. And the belt included pockets in
Speaker 1: which the various sensors and tools that were used to
Speaker 1: monitor astronaut health were located. Uh These included signal processors
Speaker 1: to handle stuff like an e c G signal or
Speaker 1: an electro cardiograph signal, and cables connecting the sensors to
Speaker 1: the equipment in the belt had to be snapped on
Speaker 1: to the LCG underneath with other sensors making direct contact
Speaker 1: with the astronauts. And next came a pressure suit called
Speaker 1: the Integrated Thermal micro Meteoroid Garment or i t m G,
Speaker 1: which was made up of three major layers. The innermost
Speaker 1: layer was made of a lightweight nylon and it included
Speaker 1: vents um. The middle layer was neo preen coated nylon,
Speaker 1: which was designed to keep pressure on the astronaut to
Speaker 1: help them manage the forces of acceleration without blacking out,
Speaker 1: and was you know, kind of an air tight sort
Speaker 1: of layer. The outermost layer was a tougher layer of
Speaker 1: nylon designed to restrain the pressurized layers so that they
Speaker 1: didn't balloon out and restrict movement too much. Remember, there's
Speaker 1: no pressure out in space, so if you have a
Speaker 1: lot of inter a pressure in your system, it's naturally
Speaker 1: going to expand in an environmental low pressure. So this
Speaker 1: was meant to curtail that a little bit. The I
Speaker 1: T MG also had integrated boots, so it's kind of
Speaker 1: like footy pajamas, but for space. Then there were interwoven
Speaker 1: layers of MILAR and dacron that went on top of this.
Speaker 1: So milar is a type of polyester film also known
Speaker 1: as biaxually oriented polyethylene tariff fyllite. And I feel like
Speaker 1: Daffy Duck trying to say all that, and I know
Speaker 1: I butchered it. The this material has some really useful properties.
Speaker 1: It's got a really high melting point, it's got really
Speaker 1: good tensile strength, and it is an electrical insulator. Those
Speaker 1: are all very useful, and it can also serve as
Speaker 1: an effective thermal reflector, meaning it can reflect heat as
Speaker 1: well as other types of radiation. Dacron is a type
Speaker 1: of polyester fabric also made by the Dupot company, which
Speaker 1: in fact also made milar. And it's a material that
Speaker 1: doesn't retain moisture, which also makes it resistant to stuff
Speaker 1: like mold and mildew. And it's often used in upholstery
Speaker 1: for furniture for those reasons, so you could very well
Speaker 1: have stuff in your home right now that's made of
Speaker 1: the same material that was part of space suits. Next
Speaker 1: came a couple of layers of a material called Capton
Speaker 1: K A P T O N, and once again the
Speaker 1: DuPont company was responsible for the development of Captain, which
Speaker 1: is a polymide film that can remain stable across a
Speaker 1: very wide range of temperatures, including the extreme temperatures that
Speaker 1: astronauts might experience on a spacewalk. NASA would also use
Speaker 1: Captain and layers in various spacecraft over the years for
Speaker 1: that very same reason. Then, the outermost layers had coatings
Speaker 1: of taflon on them, and they were made not by DuPont,
Speaker 1: by a company called kim Mores, which was a company
Speaker 1: that spun off from DuPont Golli. But this was to
Speaker 1: protect the suit and obviously the astronauts inside the suits
Speaker 1: from scrapes, and it was also capable of was standing
Speaker 1: incredible temperatures and was given the name Beta cloth. A
Speaker 1: lot of stuff on space suits would be made up
Speaker 1: of Beta cloth because of how resistant it was too
Speaker 1: high temperatures I've got more to say, in fact, a
Speaker 1: lot more to say about the Apollo suits. But first
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. Okay. I gave a quick
Speaker 1: rundown on the general layers of the space suit. But
Speaker 1: the entrance to this thing, if you needed to get
Speaker 1: into one, was through the back of the suit, and
Speaker 1: there was this heavy duty zipper that that sealed it
Speaker 1: all up. And so you would on Earth have people
Speaker 1: helping you get into this thing, because it's pretty intricate.
Speaker 1: You would have to make a lot of connections between
Speaker 1: the LCG suit, remember that's the one with all the
Speaker 1: little water tubes in it, to connect directly to this
Speaker 1: other suit that you wore on top of it. So
Speaker 1: it's not just like throwing an extra layer on, right,
Speaker 1: It's not like putting a jacket on top of a sweater,
Speaker 1: only it would be more like if your sweater had
Speaker 1: to connect directly to your jacket so that you can
Speaker 1: get oxygen and water and that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: very complicated, and to get in you needed to kind
Speaker 1: of enter with your shoulders and hips kind of aligned
Speaker 1: together and entered it more or less the same way.
Speaker 1: So you would have this this space suit essentially unfolded
Speaker 1: as you were getting in and moving your arms into
Speaker 1: the sleeves and your legs into the legs and feet
Speaker 1: of the suit, because remember the suit itself does have
Speaker 1: its own integrated boots. It was tricky to do even
Speaker 1: with help, and obviously once you got out into space,
Speaker 1: it was going to be much trickier. Once inside the suit,
Speaker 1: the astronaut would need to connect the various elements between
Speaker 1: the LCG, the bio belt, and the I t MG
Speaker 1: that outer suit, and that sounds like it was probably
Speaker 1: a really tricky process to me. Then the astronaut would
Speaker 1: use a long essentially a ribbon attached to the zipper
Speaker 1: and pull the zipper up and around. Uh So the
Speaker 1: zipper would go from the back of the neck all
Speaker 1: the way down and around the bottom of the crotch,
Speaker 1: So to zip up, you would have to grab this
Speaker 1: this ribbon and kind of stretch your arms and everything
Speaker 1: in order to be able to pull that zipper up
Speaker 1: and around. You could. Obviously if you had help that
Speaker 1: would change things dramatically, but if you were doing it
Speaker 1: by yourself, it was a heck of a thing. And
Speaker 1: once in the suit, the astronaut would then put on
Speaker 1: the communications carrier assembly a k a. The snoopy cap.
Speaker 1: This was a head covering that included the communications equipment
Speaker 1: like the microphone and headphones that the astronaut would need
Speaker 1: in order to communicate with the rest of their crew
Speaker 1: as well as those on mission control back on Earth.
Speaker 1: And this would plug into the main suit as well,
Speaker 1: so you would have this head covering that connected directly
Speaker 1: to the rest of the suit. Then you had a
Speaker 1: pair of gloves that interlocked with the arms of the suit,
Speaker 1: and there are actually two different sets of gloves. One
Speaker 1: set was used inside the spacecraft and had hands made
Speaker 1: of rubber, but for e V A missions, if you
Speaker 1: were to go out on say a lunar walk or
Speaker 1: a spacewalk, you would wear a totally different set of
Speaker 1: gloves that had silicone fingertips. And then the rest of
Speaker 1: the gloves were made of a fabric that was a
Speaker 1: type of stainless steel called chrome are. And the gloves
Speaker 1: also extended to cover the locking mechanism at the wrists
Speaker 1: for the the e v A version, because they wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that the metal in that that locking
Speaker 1: mechanism was kept insulated in case otherwise when exposed to
Speaker 1: space it might heat up or cool down too quickly
Speaker 1: and become brittle or potentially cause harm to the astronaut directly,
Speaker 1: but you know, inside the suit. Finally, you had a
Speaker 1: pressure helmet to put on, so you already have the
Speaker 1: head covering, but then you had to put a helmet
Speaker 1: on on top of that. This was made of polycarbonate
Speaker 1: and in the Apollo days it was essentially like a
Speaker 1: clear bubble style helmet. When going out on the Moon,
Speaker 1: the astronauts had to add in an element called the
Speaker 1: Lunar extra Vehicular Visor Assembly or l e v A LEVA,
Speaker 1: which included a sun visor and components that would protect
Speaker 1: the neck locking mechanism from temperatures, kind of the way
Speaker 1: that the gloves had to protect the wrist locking areas.
Speaker 1: The helmet had the same sort of thing for e
Speaker 1: v a's and there were also extra lunar boots that
Speaker 1: we need to put on on top up of your suits,
Speaker 1: integrated boots as well, so over shoes really, so you
Speaker 1: had your specific gauntlets or gloves that you had to
Speaker 1: put on, your specific overshoes you had to add to
Speaker 1: your suit, and you had this special helmet assembly that
Speaker 1: you had to add on before you would leave the
Speaker 1: lunar module in the case of a lunar landing. And
Speaker 1: I mentioned the all the connectors on the suit. The
Speaker 1: front of the suit actually had six different connectors that
Speaker 1: would attach to different life support systems. And you might wonder, well,
Speaker 1: why do you have you know, so many, like why
Speaker 1: are there six? Like you would think, oh, you really
Speaker 1: just need maybe three or four, right, Like you would
Speaker 1: need one for oxygen intake, you would need one to
Speaker 1: take carbon dioxide away. You would need one to help
Speaker 1: circulate the water, maybe two to to circulate the water.
Speaker 1: So now we're up to what four? Well, then maybe
Speaker 1: you need one more for electricity, possibly right if you
Speaker 1: didn't have like an onboard battery. But you actually had
Speaker 1: more than that on this suit. And the reason was
Speaker 1: that the portable life support system that I'll talk about
Speaker 1: a bit later in this episode, Uh, it would only
Speaker 1: work in the vacuum of space. So when you put
Speaker 1: it on before you went out onto the moon, you're
Speaker 1: on the lunar module. Yeah, you've got your your suited up,
Speaker 1: you've got your your p l SS on your back.
Speaker 1: It would not provide life support until you depressurized the
Speaker 1: lunar module and then we're ready to go out on
Speaker 1: the Moon. So in order for you to continue to
Speaker 1: have life support, you would have a connection directly to
Speaker 1: the lunar module that would provide life support to you,
Speaker 1: and you would also have connections to the p L
Speaker 1: S S at the same time. Only the lunar module
Speaker 1: would act as your life support. Once it was depressurized
Speaker 1: and you were ready to go out, then you could
Speaker 1: switch over to the p L S S and you
Speaker 1: could disconnect the connectors to your suit that we're connecting
Speaker 1: you to the lunar module. So it was, you know,
Speaker 1: just an important element that was necessary in order to
Speaker 1: have this seamless transition of life support from one source
Speaker 1: to another on Earth. Before connecting up to the spacecraft,
Speaker 1: the astronauts would actually carry with them a portable ventilator
Speaker 1: unit connected to their suits, kind of like carrying around
Speaker 1: your your own personal air conditioner in a way. This
Speaker 1: provided some oxygen and cooling capabilities, but once they were
Speaker 1: getting into the Apollo capsule, they would disconnect from these
Speaker 1: portable handheld units and then connect to the the Apollo
Speaker 1: capsule itself to provide life support. These suits were really big,
Speaker 1: they were really bulky. They were super heavy. I mean,
Speaker 1: depending on what variation you're looking at. Like the light
Speaker 1: one before you had all the extra stuff on, was
Speaker 1: weighing in and around sixty two pounds. That was just
Speaker 1: for the version that you would wear inside the capsule
Speaker 1: without any extra stuff on it. If you were to
Speaker 1: take an E V A, you'd be looking at weights
Speaker 1: going up to seventy six pounds. If you're going all
Speaker 1: the way out to the Moon with all the additional units,
Speaker 1: all the additional components, you're looking at around a hundred
Speaker 1: eighty pounds of suit you're wearing. However, keep in mind
Speaker 1: you're in space. So when you're in space space like
Speaker 1: floating in orbit or whatever, you're in micro gravity, so
Speaker 1: you're not really floating, you're falling, but you're in micro gravity,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to deal with weight so much.
Speaker 1: You have to deal with mass, but weight is not
Speaker 1: so much of an issue. And then, of course on
Speaker 1: the Moon gravity is one sixth that of Earth's, so
Speaker 1: while you'd be wearing a very bulky suit, it would
Speaker 1: not feel super heavy to you. Speaking of the Moon,
Speaker 1: Neil Armstrong's suit had the designation A seven L and
Speaker 1: the serial number zero five six and according to the Smithsonian,
Speaker 1: the estimated cost for his suit was one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars at the time. That was a lot of money
Speaker 1: back then. If we were to adjust it for inflation,
Speaker 1: that would mean that the suit was more than half
Speaker 1: a million dollars to put together, which is a pretty
Speaker 1: expensive suit, you know. I mean, I've looked at some
Speaker 1: suits that are fairly expensive and said no way, but
Speaker 1: they were not in a half million dollar range. I
Speaker 1: can tell you that. Also, according to the Smithsonian, the
Speaker 1: space suits were handbuilt. They were stitched by hand with
Speaker 1: careful precision, as even the tiniest error could result in catastrophe. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you need these suits to be strong, resilient. They need
Speaker 1: to be able to keep pressure. They needed to not
Speaker 1: allow oxygen to just escape the suit, so it was
Speaker 1: critically important that all these elements were put together with
Speaker 1: the utmost precision. Now, these suits were the most sophisticated
Speaker 1: space suits to date. And on the front part of
Speaker 1: the torso, like I said, there were those six connectors
Speaker 1: that related to the life support. There was a water
Speaker 1: connector and electrical connector, and then you had the four
Speaker 1: gas connectors for oxygen, which, as I mentioned, were doubled
Speaker 1: up so that you could go from the Lunar Module
Speaker 1: Life Support system to the p l s S system. Uh.
Speaker 1: It also had lots of pockets, like I like to
Speaker 1: think that the first aster not to try one of
Speaker 1: these on yelled. It has pockets, because there were pockets
Speaker 1: for like everything, very specific pockets, like there was a
Speaker 1: specific pocket for pencils and pen lights, and a specific
Speaker 1: pocket for scissors, and there even was a pocket for sunglasses.
Speaker 1: It had a pressure relief valve on the left arm
Speaker 1: of the suit and a pressure gauge on the right arm.
Speaker 1: Fancy stuff. But that's the lowdown on the Apollo suits.
Speaker 1: And now we need to talk about something else, a
Speaker 1: delicate subject, one that ended up being critically important. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then it's about when you have to go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom. See, the Gemini missions were in part a
Speaker 1: stepping stone towards the Apollo missions that would take astronauts
Speaker 1: to the Moon, and those trips have to last a
Speaker 1: good long time. The Gemini missions, like the longest one,
Speaker 1: lasted almost two weeks, sooner or later, you gotta go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. But when you're wearing a space suit
Speaker 1: like the ones I've described, and you're in a tight capsule,
Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot of space, and it can take
Speaker 1: a lot of time to get in and out of
Speaker 1: that space suit. And also this capsule, by the way,
Speaker 1: does not have a toilet. How do you go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom? The answer, as it turns out, ain't pretty folks.
Speaker 1: So I'd say prepare yourselves. But I'm not sure anything's
Speaker 1: gonna prepare you for what's to come. So let's let's
Speaker 1: take a step back before we get into it. Because
Speaker 1: way back when Alan Shepherd was getting ready to go
Speaker 1: into space to become the first American in space, not
Speaker 1: the first person, your Garin had done it already for
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union a month earlier, but when he was
Speaker 1: ready to go into space and be the first American
Speaker 1: in space, and a Mercury space capsule, and remember Mercury
Speaker 1: was just before Jim and I, which again was before Apollo.
Speaker 1: He was sitting there on his back inside the capsule
Speaker 1: on top of the launch vehicle on the launch pad
Speaker 1: when he really had to go pee. Now, this mission
Speaker 1: was only supposed to last fifteen minutes from launch to touchdown,
Speaker 1: which meant that everyone at NASA figured there'd be no
Speaker 1: need to worry about this kind of thing, because it's
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. You can hold it for fifteen minutes. But
Speaker 1: Shepard had been strapped into his suit and been in
Speaker 1: the Mercury capsule for several hours while waiting for these
Speaker 1: various delays to clear up, where you know, the launch
Speaker 1: had been set back a couple of hours, and making
Speaker 1: matters worse, he had had four cups of coffee the
Speaker 1: morning of his launch, so naturally, as those delays began
Speaker 1: to pile up, he began to feel the call of nature,
Speaker 1: and the call was urgent. He had to pee. Well,
Speaker 1: there was no getting out of the suit because as
Speaker 1: tiny as the Apollo capsule was, which carried three astronauts
Speaker 1: in it at a time, the Mercury, which was a
Speaker 1: single astronaut capsule, was particularly tiny. Essentially, it was you know,
Speaker 1: a chair surrounded by electronic components in very tight quarters.
Speaker 1: There was no getting out of the capsule, at least
Speaker 1: not without scrapping the whole mission. So he just you know,
Speaker 1: decided he had to go with the flow as and
Speaker 1: he needed to pee in his suit. Actually, he actually
Speaker 1: had to request permission to do this because no one
Speaker 1: had really thought about this yet, and they weren't into
Speaker 1: really sure that this was going to be safe to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're talking about a suit that also has
Speaker 1: components that attached to life support. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: electronic equipment there. So this was a new and urgent problem.
Speaker 1: And reportedly an engineer named Gordon Cooper was on the
Speaker 1: receiving end of this request, which will become important later.
Speaker 1: And this is the sort of stuff in history books
Speaker 1: that you tend to not discover. They tend to leave
Speaker 1: this part out. But he got permission to see two matters,
Speaker 1: and he wet himself before his flight because he had
Speaker 1: no other option. And keep in mind he was seated
Speaker 1: with his you know, his back is is to the ground, right,
Speaker 1: because you're seated in a where you're you're facing straight up,
Speaker 1: So it all just kind of pooled behind him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not pleasant. Well, when we come back, we'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how NASA decided to try and tackle
Speaker 1: this potentially crappy problem. But first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: So what was NASA's solution to this problem after Shepherd's
Speaker 1: historic and damp flight. Well, they created a urine collection device.
Speaker 1: So the astronauts at that time we're all male. So
Speaker 1: the idea was just kind of secure a condom style
Speaker 1: containment bag, you know, around the downstairs mix up area.
Speaker 1: And John Glenn on his mission, generated more than two
Speaker 1: pints of p in four hours. Impressive. But wait, there's more.
Speaker 1: For the final Mercury mission, astronaut Gordon Cooper was to
Speaker 1: be in orbit for more than twenty four hours, and
Speaker 1: so NASA designed a system that included the in suit
Speaker 1: urine collection bag that was in turn going to eventually
Speaker 1: be incorporated into the heavy duty space boxer briefs that
Speaker 1: I talked about before. And extending from this bag was
Speaker 1: a plastic tube that ended in a quick connector. Ah.
Speaker 1: There was a fly on the suit, like a zipper
Speaker 1: fly on the front of the suit, so Cooper could
Speaker 1: unzip a suit, pull out this tube with a connector
Speaker 1: on the end of it, then attach a line with
Speaker 1: the other half of the connector to it. This line
Speaker 1: also had a pump attached to it. Cooper could activate
Speaker 1: that pump by hand, and then he would pump the
Speaker 1: p out of the in suit bag through this line
Speaker 1: to a collection bag, and then he was supposed to
Speaker 1: put the collection bag under his seat. Because NASA was
Speaker 1: really interested in learning more about that p and that
Speaker 1: was the first space toilet sort of. It was called
Speaker 1: the Mercury Atlas nine or m A nine ur nation
Speaker 1: system glamorous right, And you might remember earlier in this
Speaker 1: episode I said that Gordon Cooper was the person who
Speaker 1: was actually on the other end of the communications channel
Speaker 1: when Al Shepherd had to request permission to pe in
Speaker 1: his suit for that first Mercury mission. Well, on Cooper's flight,
Speaker 1: Shepherd was the guy who was on the other end
Speaker 1: of the communications channel, and he actually played a little
Speaker 1: bit of a prank on on Cooper. Shepherd went to
Speaker 1: the capsule before Cooper was to board it and put
Speaker 1: a little toilet plunger in the seat of the capsule
Speaker 1: with the tags attached that said removed before flight. Just
Speaker 1: kind of a fun story of astronauts rasing each other.
Speaker 1: But the GYM and I project proved that even more
Speaker 1: thought was going to have to be put forward to this,
Speaker 1: because the longest of the Gemini missions was to last
Speaker 1: two weeks in space. While NASA tried putting astronauts on
Speaker 1: a diet that would hopefully produce the least amount of
Speaker 1: solid waste, well, sometimes the best laid plans just freaking
Speaker 1: go aglay, don't they. Well, the hope was that by
Speaker 1: using these foods with a very low fiber content, they
Speaker 1: would just you know, avoid the need for the astronauts
Speaker 1: to have that type of evacuation. They could pee into
Speaker 1: the bags, but hopefully they would not need to poop.
Speaker 1: But um, that would not be the case. Now, they
Speaker 1: did have a slightly more sophisticated urine collection device which,
Speaker 1: on casual glance, because I looked at a picture, this
Speaker 1: thing kind of was like a cross between a lightsaber
Speaker 1: and a set of bagpipes. And I know that sounds confusing,
Speaker 1: but just imagine a device that at one end has
Speaker 1: a condom fits over the astronaut operating equipment. Keeping in
Speaker 1: mind that again at this point in history, all the
Speaker 1: astronauts were mail and then through a series of valves,
Speaker 1: the there was a connection to a collections bag to
Speaker 1: pick up all the p and the astronauts were meant
Speaker 1: to store these bags of p under their seats or
Speaker 1: actually to use them to vent them out into space.
Speaker 1: You would actually connect the bag to a connector on
Speaker 1: the spacecraft, open up a channel, and the urine would
Speaker 1: vent into space and would instantly crystallize upon exiting the capsule.
Speaker 1: There's actually video footage of this where you can see
Speaker 1: the formation of the crystals as the p is being
Speaker 1: vented out into space, so that that footage exists if
Speaker 1: you want to check it out anyway. For the Gemini
Speaker 1: or Gemini seven mission, the astronauts were to be in
Speaker 1: space for nearly two weeks at gem level and Frank
Speaker 1: Boorman where the astronauts on board Historic Flight Unfortunately, despite
Speaker 1: the low fiber diet, Level felt the need to go
Speaker 1: pooh when they were still several days left in the mission,
Speaker 1: and so he went, like, there wasn't really any real
Speaker 1: option to do anything else, so he pooped his suit,
Speaker 1: and that experience taught NASA that something else was going
Speaker 1: to need to be done for Apollo, because those missions
Speaker 1: were also going to be very long to get out
Speaker 1: to the Moon and come back. But if you think
Speaker 1: that that something was to include a toilet on the
Speaker 1: Apollo capsule, well you're wrong because it was way too
Speaker 1: late in the game to figure that out. So instead
Speaker 1: there need to be some sort of equipment the astronauts
Speaker 1: could have to deal with the issue, and an actual
Speaker 1: process for them to follow and well, there wasn't enough
Speaker 1: space in the capsule to carry something really sophisticated. And
Speaker 1: now we come to the poop in a bag part
Speaker 1: of our podcast. Yeah, so the poop collection equipment consisted
Speaker 1: of a bag with some adhesive around the rim of
Speaker 1: the opening, so you were essentially taping the bag to
Speaker 1: your backside and creating a seal. Otherwise, well you're gonna
Speaker 1: have poop fly all over the place in microgravity, and
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, that actually did happen. Kind of a crappy
Speaker 1: flight experience, if you ask me. Anyway, According to what
Speaker 1: I've read, the procedure for doing this involved the astronaut
Speaker 1: who needed to go to the bathroom moving to one
Speaker 1: side of the capsule, the other two being as far
Speaker 1: away as they possibly could be from the third that
Speaker 1: was not particularly far in the Apollo capsule. Then the
Speaker 1: astronaut who needed to go would have to get out
Speaker 1: of a suit like all of his suits, stripping down naked, which,
Speaker 1: as I'm sure you've gathered, requires a pretty good amount
Speaker 1: of work. Then he would need to adhere the defecation
Speaker 1: collection system or you know, the poop bag, to his posterior.
Speaker 1: The bag also included a flap of plastic and you
Speaker 1: would put your fingers into this flap of plastic was
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, like a like a plastic
Speaker 1: glove for a couple of fingers. Because okay, so there's
Speaker 1: no gravity in space, or rather micro gravity. It's like
Speaker 1: you're constantly falling. So the effect to us is that
Speaker 1: we're floating weightless. Right. Gravity is typically what causes the
Speaker 1: separation of poop from you know us when we poop.
Speaker 1: Gravity is helps us out in that matter, and that
Speaker 1: meant there needed to be something there so that the
Speaker 1: astronaut could you know, effectively using gloved fingers make that
Speaker 1: separation happen manually. Yeah, I know, this is gross. And
Speaker 1: once done, the astronaut would need to use a special
Speaker 1: anti microbial tablet that would be inserted into this bag
Speaker 1: and broken up so that, uh, the the tablet would
Speaker 1: kill off the microbes in there. And you had to
Speaker 1: mix this like by squishing this bag of poo and
Speaker 1: microbial tablets are inta microbial tablets because otherwise the microbes
Speaker 1: in the poo might generate various gases and that could
Speaker 1: eventually cause bags to over inflate and potentially rupture, which
Speaker 1: is super gross and dangerous because otherwise microbials in the
Speaker 1: poop could start to generate various gases that could cause
Speaker 1: the bags to inflate over time, potentially to the point
Speaker 1: where they would rupture, which is a pretty big eu.
Speaker 1: So the tablets were meant to prevent that from happening
Speaker 1: by killing off the bacterium. And once all that was
Speaker 1: done and the bag was sealed and stowed away, the
Speaker 1: astronaut could go back through the process of getting back
Speaker 1: into their their flight suit. The whole process could take
Speaker 1: upwards of an hour, and the astronauts hated doing it
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons, and they would frequently hold off for
Speaker 1: as long as they possibly could before having to give
Speaker 1: into the column nature. And yeah, there were incidents of
Speaker 1: rogue poo in capsules. I mean Apollo nine was one
Speaker 1: such mission. Their actual communication logs, no pun intended that
Speaker 1: talk about a floating turd in the capsule, because sometimes
Speaker 1: being a hero gets pretty darn gross. After Apollo, a
Speaker 1: lot of work would go into creating, you know, other
Speaker 1: systems to make it easier to go to the bathroom
Speaker 1: in space, or at least a little less unpleasant, if
Speaker 1: not actually easier. But we're not going to go into
Speaker 1: all of those because really the only reason I wanted
Speaker 1: to cover it here was because it was coinciding with
Speaker 1: the evolution of the space suit, and the two played
Speaker 1: apart with one another. So let's get back to Apollo
Speaker 1: and cover up a couple of little brief things. The
Speaker 1: whole purpose of the Apollo missions was again to get
Speaker 1: astronauts to the Moon, and that would mean that any
Speaker 1: astronaut taking a moonwalk would need to have their own
Speaker 1: life support system connected to their suit and on board
Speaker 1: the capsule. It wouldn't be a problem, and the spacecraft
Speaker 1: provided all life support, but now on the Moon the
Speaker 1: job would fall to the p l s S, or
Speaker 1: the portable life support system. That is where we will
Speaker 1: pick up in our next episode to talk about the
Speaker 1: p l s S. We'll talk about the further evolution
Speaker 1: of the space suit, including how it then evolved into
Speaker 1: the type that was used aboard the Space Shuttle and
Speaker 1: the kind that's used on the International Space Station. We
Speaker 1: will also talk about the proposals that have been in
Speaker 1: various forms of production since then, and about the the
Speaker 1: the proposed design of the future space suit, the one
Speaker 1: that unfortunately means that the Artemis program is going to
Speaker 1: be delayed by at least a year, but we'll get
Speaker 1: into that into the next episode. If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: reach out to me and let me know what those are.
Speaker 1: The best way to do that is on our Twitter account.
Speaker 1: That's text Stuff. Hsw over on Twitter and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again, really s. Text Stuff is an I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.