eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (04/08/85)
At the request of someone on the ARPAnet, I spoke to Hubert Vyukal
who has been working on suit design for about 15 years. His comments
are with respect to suit designs for the space station.
Basically, the next generation of space suits have to face a
significant set of problems never encountered before: they have
to protect the occupant from a greater degree of ionizing radiation,
man-made space debris [from large numbers of explosions and collisions
which have already taken place], static charge build-up, and atomic oxygen.
Space around the earth is not what it used to be. The principal worry before
was micro-meteor penetration.
Additionally, the suit must be a maintenance free suit unlike current
"two-use" suits today.
The next generation suit will also have to take care of the "bends" problem
by being a 1 ATM suit (full pressure). It will more than likely be a
suit composed of interconnected aluminum shells with thermal coatings
to distribute heat flux.
The major problem, of course, will is in the area of glove design.
They want a hard glove with greater protection and modularity, but
with surgrical glove dexterity.
Is this enough?
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
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