WEBVTT - Space Suit Evolution 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.680 He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:23.360 and I love all things tech. And back in March 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.000 of twenty twenty, just as we were starting to go 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.000 into a work from home phase, I published the episode 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.000 about the artemis program, you know, the one that I 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.400 actually ran last week, So if you if you did 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.760 miss it back in March, we ran it again last week. 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:42.760 And uh, that might have even been the very first 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:46.800 episode that published after our office closed, because it published 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:52.520 on March six, and from a desk calendar that refuses 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:54.760 to change, I know the last day that most people 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:59.400 were in the office was March. Anyway. In that episode, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.240 in case you didn't listen to the rerun from last week, 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:06.360 I described the goals and the purpose of NASA's Artemus program, 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.120 which includes a return to the Moon. And I'm sure 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.280 that I mentioned probably multiple times that it was an 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.240 incredibly aggressive goal, one that I was kind of having 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.560 trouble seeing NASA actually achieve. It just seemed like it 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.520 was too tough of a thing to do to have 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.600 it be done by well NASA's Office of the Inspector 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:33.040 General has outright said that the goal is unachievable because 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.720 one of the necessary components, that being a new space 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:40.040 suit design, will not be ready until the spring of 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:43.800 at the earliest. Um. That's not the only thing that's 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.560 going to push that program back, but it's one of 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.160 the big ones. So I thought today we would talk 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.320 a bit about space suits and their history, and then 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.400 in our next episode we'll continue that and talk about 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:01.480 the current project to update space suits and why has 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.200 it taken so long? Why are we behind schedule? But 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:06.800 to start off with, let's talk about why you need 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:09.880 a space suit out there in the first place. Now, 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.360 those of you have been listening to tech stuff for 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:15.880 a while know that I have a saying. Actually I've 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:17.360 got a few of them, but one of them is 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.560 space is trying to kill you all the time. It 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.960 never rests, and it's always trying to do it. And 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.600 there are a lot of ways that space is doing this. 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.760 One is that space, like one of those terrible restaurants, 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.240 has a complete lack of atmosphere. I mean, like there's 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:37.720 no oxygen out there, so you'd have nothing to breathe. 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:41.080 You could pass out within fifteen seconds. Just from that alone. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:45.920 Beyond that, your blood could boil in space, And that 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.840 might seem a bit counterintuitive after all, Like, if you're 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:51.920 talking about deep space, that's cold, right, I mean, like, 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.079 if you're talking about deep deep space you're outside of 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.520 the Solar system. That would just be a couple of 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.000 degrees off from absolute zero, which is the coldest temperature possible. 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.720 Because an absolute zero there's no molecular movement at all. 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.560 Atoms are just kind of perfectly still. Normally they're vibrating 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:11.080 all around the place. So with the temperature of that cold, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.040 you would probably expect to freeze rather than to boil. 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.920 I'll come back to the temperature thing in just a second. 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.720 But here's the tricky bit. See, for heat to dissipate, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:24.600 you need to have a way to transfer it away 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.440 from one body to another, and without convection, the heat 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.079 would tend to stay with you for a bit. Though 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.960 you wouldn't stay warm for long. It's just you wouldn't 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.960 immediately turn into an ice lolly. Now that means you'd 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:41.040 have enough body heat to boil off your body fluids 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:45.040 and blood. See, the vacuum of space means there's very 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.600 very low pressure. Right, there's no air pressure in space, 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:51.760 and that would reduce the boiling point of the various 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:55.120 liquids in your body. And if they're reduced down low enough, 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:57.960 it means that your body heat alone would be enough 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:01.800 to boil off those liquids. Now, we can totally simulate 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.080 this on Earth, though preferably not with a living creature, 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.600 by putting you know, a jar of room temperature water 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.200 in a vacuum chamber and then sucking the air out 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.320 of the chamber, and you can make water boil at 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.599 room temperature. This way, the water does not get hotter 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.800 or anything like that, it just has a lower boiling point. Actually, 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:28.080 the temperature of your blood and body fluids would probably 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.200 go down as it was boiling, because boiling is an 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.719 endothermic process and the liquid loses energy in that process. 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:38.760 But we'll move on because we've got a lot of 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.560 other stuff to cover in this episode. So those boiling 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.560 body fluids and the low pressure environment of space means 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:47.320 that all your soft tissues would also start to swell 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.560 and expand that would be uncomfortable if it were just 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:53.520 you know, like your skin and maybe your fat tissue. 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.240 But it also includes your internal organ So that's you know, 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:00.800 inconvenient at best. Now I also mean in that, as 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:07.920 Cohn said in Star Trek two, it's very cold in space, 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.240 but that's only partly true. See, if you're exposed to 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.919 sunlight out in outer space, you could experience temperatures of 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.640 around a hundred twenty degrees celsius or two degrees fahrenheit. 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:23.800 Now if you're out of the sun, if you are 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:28.600 in you know, the shade in space, that temperature would plunge, uh, 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.480 though not necessarily all the way down to have absolute zero, uh, 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.960 you know, because we reserve the super cold stuff or 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.520 deep space. But it would go really low, like more 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.120 than negative on d degrees fahrenheit. And that means that 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.000 you're going to encounter vastly different temperatures and changes in temperature. 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.560 Then you've got tiny particles in space that can be 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.960 moving at incredible speeds. These are micro meteoroids, and they 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.719 are tiny, but because of momentum, they can pack a 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:02.040 huge punch. See that's that class sick equation of momentum 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:08.040 is mass times velocity. So the mass of a some 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:12.200 some matter traveling at a specific velocity, which is you know, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:16.360 speed plus direction so a tiny particle could have very 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.920 little mass, but if it's traveling fast enough, it carries 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.840 a heck of a lot of momentum. I mean, that's 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:26.320 the principle behind things like projectile weapons, right. They projectiles 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.240 don't have a lot of mass, but they move super fast, 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:31.400 so they have a lot of momentum, and thus they 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:33.640 can have a big impact. So you would want to 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:36.159 wear something that could offer at least some protection against 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:38.880 that kind of stuff. Uh, then you've got the various 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.920 forms of radiation that you would encounter in space. Here 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:46.240 on Earth we have an atmosphere and a magnetosphere, and 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.760 together those provide us with some protection against some of 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.080 the worst radiation out there, like gamma radiation and that 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.960 kind of thing. But if you're outside of that layer 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:57.520 of protection, you need something to keep you safe from 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.120 deadly radiation or else you could suffer some serious consequences 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:05.680 from acute burns too long term health complications like cancer. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:09.760 So obviously, if you want to visit someplace like the Moon, 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.480 you're going to need a special suit to provide protection 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.880 against the multitude of ways space is trying to kill you. 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:19.000 The suit needs to be pressurized and allow you to 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.960 have a breathable atmosphere inside. The suit needs to be 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.640 able to remove carbon dioxide, which you know we exhale, 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.840 so that we can continue to breathe oxygen and function. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.160 It needs to protect against micro meteoroids at least a 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.520 little bit. Needs to keep you at a temperature that's 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.320 not too hot or too cold, even as you exert 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:41.920 energy to move around and encounter areas of fluctuating temperatures. Ideally, 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.360 it also will include systems that let you communicate with 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.600 other people. After all, because space has a shortage of 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:53.080 molecules out there, Sound does not travel in space. For 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:57.080 sound to travel, molecules need to vibrate against other molecules. 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:02.080 Sound travels through the air through air pressure fluctuations, and 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.200 that really, when you zoom in on the whole thing, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:09.200 would just be air molecules moving and causing neighboring air 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:13.600 molecules to move back and forth at certain frequencies. And 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.680 some of those frequencies we can observe as sound, We 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:22.239 can perceive them. Space does not have that excess of molecules, 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.160 so there's nothing to carry sound out there, So we've 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.560 gotta have tech systems built into our suits. If we 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:29.880 want to be able to talk to each other or 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:33.560 two people back on Earth. So those are some of 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.280 the bare minimum requirements that you would want from your 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.120 space suit, you know, assuming you were gonna go out 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.880 into space itself. The earliest space suits were a bit 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.800 simpler than that because they weren't intended to be worn 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.240 outside of a spacecraft. You know, there was no extra 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.240 vehicular activity or e v A in the earliest missions. 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.600 The space suits needed to protect the people in the 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:02.000 spacecraft from other potential threats like maybe a fire aboard 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.120 the spacecraft. Uh, they actually evolved from flight suits. So 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.679 let's start with flight suits and work our way up. Alright, 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:15.160 So the earliest aviation outfits were for low altitude flying 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.160 because that's what the aircraft of the day were capable of. 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.200 So early pilots all the way up into the World 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.160 War One era would wear some pretty simple gear. There 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.560 were a few attempts at creating official pilot uniforms and 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.160 suits in the early days of World War One, but 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.239 many pilots chose to go up with their own gear instead, 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.360 as the suits weren't necessarily a good fit I mean, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.600 so to speak, not like literally fit, but like they 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.240 didn't provide the level of protection against the cold, for example, 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.960 that a lot of pilots wanted. Uh So this was 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:51.880 actually approved by the military. I mean air air combat 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.360 was so new anyway that it was kind of the 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.080 military catching up to technology. Most of the gear, whether 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.600 it was provided by the military or the pilots themselves, 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:06.280 was either repurposed or modified motoring gear, so the kind 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.319 of stuff that people who were driving automobiles were wearing. 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.800 So this is where we would get that image of 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.320 pilots wearing bomber jackets and baggy trousers. They were practical 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:18.840 and that they helped the pilot to stay warm and 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.880 offered a bit of protection against stuff like you know, 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.520 debris that you might encounter or oil that was given 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.640 off by the engine. And for that same reason, pilots 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.960 typically wore goggles to protect their eyes, and gloves to 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.320 protect their hands, and helmets to you know, protect their noggins. 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.280 This was in the open cockpit days when airplanes did 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:42.160 not travel to super high altitudes, so there wasn't really 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:46.120 a need for pressurization yet. Also, the temperatures in winter 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.760 could dip as low as negative thirty five celsius when 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.560 flying at altitudes of ten to fifteen thousand feet, which 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:56.160 was kind of, you know, not uncommon in some parts 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.079 of the world during World War One, so staying warm 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.720 was absolutely idol. Then there was this feller named Sydney 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.400 Cotton from Australia who helped develop a flight suit that 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:10.680 had a fur and airproof silk lining in it to 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.160 protect against the cold. His design was so well received 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:16.840 and it became known as the sid Caught flight suit 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.400 for Sydney Cotton. Uh. It became the standard for the 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.040 second half of World War One for especially the Royal 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:28.120 Air Force, so the sid cut suits became pretty pretty 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.840 much universal there. The first actual flight suit that was 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.440 made specifically to handle the challenges of flying in a 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:38.080 plane at higher altitudes was the product of a pilot 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:42.560 named Wiley Post who, along with the company B F. Goodrich, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.720 created this flight suit and the suit was pressurized. It 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.400 had special arm and leg joints to help the pilot 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:52.000 with mobility, because when you pressurize a suit, I mean 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:55.120 you're you're kind of you're inflating essentially, is what you're doing. 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:57.439 So you have to have some way of dealing with 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.840 mobility issues because the suit gets stiff as it's like 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:04.520 you're inside a giant balloon. Uh. And also they connected 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:08.520 the suit to a source of liquid oxygen to U 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:13.640 to end up supplying air for the higher altitudes. By 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.920 World War Two, the nature of air combat had changed 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.360 and you had bombers that could fly at very high altitudes. 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.000 But in the days before pressurized cabins, it meant that 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.280 the people inside the planes need to wear special flight 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.079 suits with electric heating elements in them to fight off 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.560 the cold at those higher altitudes. And just as a reminder, 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:36.280 electric heaters are really simple electronics. Basically, you have a 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:40.320 conductor that has a pretty good resistance to electrical flow, 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.560 and then you try to feed a current through that conductor. 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.360 So as electricity tries to flow through this conductor that 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:50.800 has high resistance, a lot of the electrical energy converts 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.960 into heat. And this is the principle behind stuff like 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:58.000 electric stovetops and electric toasters. I mean, it's similar to 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:01.560 how incandescent lightbulbs work in a way as well. And 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.520 I should add that there was some experimentation with electric 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.160 heated components even back as far as World War One, 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.280 but they were pretty primitive. In addition, they were typically 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.520 powered by a small windmill generator that could be mounted 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:17.720 onto the wing of a plane, and a normal operation 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:19.480 that was fine. But if the pilot ever had to 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.320 engage in say like a dive, where the velocity of 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.000 the air going past the plane increased dramatically, well that 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:31.199 would coincide with an increased output from the windmill generator, 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.320 and then you could have way too much voltage being 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.520 supplied to the heating elements and the pilot could actually 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:41.880 get burned by these components that were meant to keep 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:43.840 the pilot warm as they flew, which is kind of 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:48.920 a big yike's But over time the flight suit evolved. Pressurization, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.800 heating elements, oxygen supply, protective elements like helmets, and the 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.120 development of flame retardant materials all became part of the 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.280 design of flight suits, and post World War Two we 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.360 entered into an era of new experimentation with regard to 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.959 high altitude flying and really pushing the limits of both 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.280 aircraft and human endurance. Part of that was how humans 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:14.839 can handle acceleration or G forces, So like G force 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:20.040 being in relation to the strength of gravity right uh 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.800 at C level essentially, but one one G is one 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.440 one to one of Earth's gravity. Well, that last bit 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.520 about you know, withstanding acceleration was super important because during 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:36.640 intense acceleration, humans have a tendency to black out. I mean, obviously, 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:40.320 when you're piloting a craft through the air or in space, 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:42.720 that's a bad thing. I mean, it's not really a 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:45.240 good thing in any context, I suppose. But what is 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.400 going on here? Why do we black out at higher accelerations. Well, 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:52.680 during those intense accelerations, our blood tends to pool in 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.520 the lower part of our body, and that means the 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.560 old brain ain't getting enough of that sweet, sweet oxygen 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.560 that it graves oh so much. And this can lead 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:05.320 to a gray out, which is where your vision starts 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.960 to diminish, or a full on blackout where you lose 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.520 your vision and even a loss of consciousness. Now, the 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.960 suits developed in the nineteen forties and nineteen fifties used 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.080 various means, such as inflatable bladders that could fill with 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.400 either air or with water in some cases, to provide 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.080 pressure on the lower parts of the body and help 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:30.480 push back against that tendency for blood to pool in 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.680 the lower half of the body. Even so, this typically 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:38.160 only allows a pilot to endure a little more acceleration 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:43.080 than whatever their natural tolerances, so it's somewhere in between 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.880 three to five times the force of gravity for most people. Interestingly, 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:50.960 the development of these components was something of a controversy 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.480 in that the people who are building the planes, the 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.600 engineers building planes, were kind of worried that if pilots 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.240 knew that they could push them elves harder because their 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:05.560 suits would allow them to withstand greater acceleration, that they 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.000 would bloody well go and do that, even if it 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:12.720 meant that they were pushing the aircraft beyond its own 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:17.240 stress capabilities. And so some air forces, some you know, 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.480 some some flight schools and stuff, chose to hold back 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.120 on incorporating what would become known as G suits for 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.840 a while, in an effort to avoid encouraging pilots to 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:33.240 you know, go fast. Oh. Also, interestingly, one person to 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:36.400 experiment with G suit development in the early forties was 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:41.000 a guy named Frank Cotton from Australia. I say interestingly 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:44.120 because if you were listening earlier, you heard me talk 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.080 about Sydney Cotton, also from Australia, who is the feller 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:52.520 who came up with that Sidcot suit so your question is, 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:57.360 were Frank and Sydney cotton related? I have no cotton 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.880 picking idea. That was a long way to go for 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.240 something that wasn't even quite a joke. In fact, I 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:03.960 think it was long enough where we all need to 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:14.000 take a quick break, but we'll be right back. So 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:17.680 by the nineteen fifties, the flight suit had evolved into 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.640 gear that was meant to provide various types of protection 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.840 to pilots. With the creation of pressurized cabins with climate control, 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.359 some of the stuff was less important, right, Some of 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:33.320 the pressurization things and the heat elements weren't as important 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:35.879 and didn't need to be incorporated into some flight suits. 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:39.000 But flight suits still need to be flame resistant, they 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:41.560 need to allow for mobility, and they needed to provide 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:44.679 protection in the event that pilot needed to eject from 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:48.399 their aircraft, and also for anything that was involving a 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:52.000 lot of like intense acceleration, you needed to have that 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:56.520 g suit protection. But now let's move on to space suits, because, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.320 as I said earlier, they evolved from flight suits. The 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.520 space race that got started in the nineteen fifties was 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.600 really an extension of the Cold War and a race 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.879 between the United States and the then Soviet Union to 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.920 reach certain milestones before the other could, all while also 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:18.680 demonstrating a technological capability of reigning destruction down on the 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.399 other country should at all come to that. So in 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:27.840 some ways this was a struggle to claim technological superiority 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.359 over a rival. UH. The Soviets really got the jump 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:34.480 on the Americans with the launch of Spotnik in nineteen 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.159 fifty seven, marking the first time a human made satellite 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.080 entered Earth orbit, and they would also be the first 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.680 to put a person into space. The first space suit 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.400 emerged from the then Soviet Union as part of its 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:53.400 cosmonaut program. It had the designation of s K one UH. 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.080 The s K stood for some Russian words that translate 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.679 roughly into space diving suit because the suit had some 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.640 feature is similar to like a deep sea diving suit 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.560 think of like the Big Daddies and BioShock. And even 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.959 this was an evolution of earlier flight suits worn by 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.359 Soviet jet pilot fighter pilots. The first human to go 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:17.119 into space was Uri Gagarin in nineteen sixty one, and 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.159 Gagarin's trip was aboard a space capsule and he wasn't 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.600 going to exit the capsule while in space, so he 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.920 didn't need to have the full like extra vehicular activity 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.920 style space suit. However, because the Soviets had not yet 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.840 developed a spacecraft that could land safely, he would have 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:40.199 to eject during descent and then parachute down from an 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.879 altitude of around twenty thousand feet. So these are the 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.680 sort of factors that went into the design of the suit. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:49.520 They had to make a suit that would be able 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.280 to do these kind of things. The suit had a 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.440 helmet that had a visor that could be lowered down 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.080 over the face. In fact, had a pressure sensor that 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.119 the pressure sensor detected a crease and pressure a rapid decompression, 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.119 then the visor could slam down and seal it. The 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.040 helmet was permanently attached to the suit. You could only 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.920 take the helmet off by taking off the whole darn suit. 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.160 Worn Under the helmet was a leather covered radio headset 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.399 below the helmet on the suit was a collar that 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.920 could inflate in the event that Gagaron landed in the water. 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:25.560 That would allow him to keep his head above water 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:27.960 if that were the case. Because again, since the helmet 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.520 couldn't be removed, there was no getting out of that 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.000 suit quickly in the case of a water landing, but 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.320 an inflated collar could keep his head above the level 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:40.359 of water. The fabric of the suit was nylon, which 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:43.399 is a synthetic polymer, and it was bright orange and 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.560 color to make it easier to spot Gagaron upon his return. 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.600 The suit also had gloves with leather palms and heavy 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.880 leather boots, and the suit did the job. Gagaran returned 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.320 safely to Earth after spending more than an hour and 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:02.080 a half orbiting the planet. One time, he reportedly startled 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.360 a farmer and his daughter as he returned. When he landed, 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:11.119 uh is walking through the countryside, dragging a parachute behind him, 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:13.280 dressed in a big orange suit and having a big 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.360 helmet on, and he tried his best to assure them 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.760 that he was a Soviet just like they were, and 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.560 all he needed was a telephone in order to call Moscow, 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.840 which I just think is a great story. Meanwhile, over 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:29.399 the United States there was the same rush to get 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:31.760 to space, and at that point it was a rush 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:33.880 to catch up to the Soviets because they had beaten 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:37.640 America to the punch. Engineers were already working on suit 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.159 designs that would be suitable to allow astronauts to go 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.640 outside of a spacecraft, perhaps even walking on the Moon. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.760 But these were in the earliest stages of development. They 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:50.200 were in the prototype stage. And uh I saw pictures 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.440 of one of the early pressurized suits and it literally 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.600 looked like it came out of Edwood science fiction film 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:58.520 if you don't know who that is, Plan nine from 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:03.840 Matter Space Director, just the cheesiest of of nineteen style 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.040 sci fi B movies. And the engineer inside the suit 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.200 was wearing it looked like kind of a metal barrel 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:14.520 for the torso like think of like like one of 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.280 those ten wind up robot toys. It kind of look 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.920 like that had segmented sleeves that covered the arms, had 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.119 a helmet with a glass visor that looked kind of 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:25.600 like the head of a Lego figurine, kind of had 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:28.800 that cylindrical look to it. They were a long way 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.359 away from the modern space suit, is what I'm saying. 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.320 The Mercury seven, the pilots who trained to be part 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:38.160 of Project Mercury, which was our first attempt to send 0:22:38.560 --> 0:22:41.679 people to space, reliant upon a flight suit called the 0:22:41.800 --> 0:22:45.240 Navy Mark four, which was designed by the BF good 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.120 Rich Company. The heritage for the Mark four trace its 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:50.520 history all the way back to Wiley Post, whom I 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:53.639 mentioned before the break, and in fact they even had 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:56.119 the same designer. A guy named Russell Collie worked on 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:59.360 both of those. The suit had a zipper that extended 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:02.840 from the left shoulder and moved diagonally down across the 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:05.480 torso and ended at the waist. There are also a 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.120 couple of other zippers. There were two at the neck 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:12.400 and one around the waist, which made it quote unquote 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:14.600 easier to get in and out of the suit. But 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:18.520 when I say easier, just know that I don't mean easy, 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.680 just easier than some other one piece suits. The suit 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:25.720 covered the entire body except for the head and hands, 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:29.800 which were covered by a detachable helmet and gloves, respectively. 0:23:30.119 --> 0:23:32.600