MIT Works On Mars Space Suit 71
An anonymous reader writes in with a story about MIT's work on space suits to be used by Mars astronauts. "When we send the first humans to Mars we will need to get the most scientific data in the smallest amount of time while not exhausting our astronauts in the process. Dava J. Newman has been working on a 'biosuit' that's designed to do just that....Dava’s suit would be a huge leap forward in terms of construction as well. They’ve enlisted the expertise of Dainese, an Italian manufacturer of motorcycle racing 'leathers'—leather and carbon-fiber suits designed to protect racers traveling at up to 200 mph.
The suit would be a degree safer than current space suits. While a puncture or scrape in a traditional space suit would cause a dramatic decrease in pressure and would be traumatic, even deadly, the 'biosuit' could be patched with a high-tech ace bandage. The wearer would wrap it around the punctured area to stop the leak almost instantly. Pressure loss would be minimal and the astronaut would be able to continue working and finish his or her task. "
Careful tiger, (Score:1)
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Is this ever going to be used, and is this going to speed up people going to Mars?
I think that, if they NASA et al really wanted to go to Mars and actually do a mission, they'd have developed a proper space suit to match the mission pretty fast. They also managed to do everything for the Moon mission in the 60's, so ...
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NASA contracted the space suit for the Apollo program to the firms Hamilton Standard and International Latex Corporation.
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Is this ever going to be used, and is this going to speed up people going to Mars?
I think that, if they NASA et al really wanted to go to Mars and actually do a mission, they'd have developed a proper space suit to match the mission pretty fast. They also managed to do everything for the Moon mission in the 60's, so ...
On the list of things necessary to get to Mars and build a permanent outpost there (like the ISS or the Amundsen-Scott Base on the South Pole), I would put getting a proper space suit working is rather far down the list and one of the more insignificant issues to be resolved.... particularly because proven spacesuit designs have already been made in previous flights by at least three different nations and presumably different companies all trying to do the same thing.
Back when NASA was trying to figure out
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On the list of things necessary to get to Mars and build a permanent outpost there (like the ISS or the Amundsen-Scott Base on the South Pole), I would put getting a proper space suit working is rather far down the list and one of the more insignificant issues to be resolved.... particularly because proven spacesuit designs have already been made in previous flights by at least three different nations and presumably different companies all trying to do the same thing.
Well sure, but we're not talking about a program that's at the top of NASA's priority list here, either. It's an MIT program that's been going on for years (I saw this lady on tv a good, long time ago).
Re:Careful tiger, (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and all of them suck to one extent or another. The suit is one of the main reasons why EVAs are very limited in duration, they spend a lot of their energy fighting against the suit to move. Colonists, as opposed to explorers, need something that can be worn for most of a day without exhausting the wearer. They'll probably never get as easy as the zip-up space suit with the bubble helmet of Buck Rogers, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
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colonists need to live in a giant bubble that alleviates the need for them to actually wear any kind of special suit all day...
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Not feasible. Sure, the goal should be to build a giant bubble or dome for them to live in, but 1) there's going to be some time until they get that thing built and ready to inhabit, and you'll need construction workers walking around outside to get it built, and 2) the Mars base isn't going to be a place for people to just stay inside all day long and telecommute, they're going to need to go out in the field at some point to do work, whether it's checking out sites for geology studies or figuring out wher
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Whether you have suits or a giant bubble you are talking about tanked gas a bubble with CO2 scrubbing is more efficient. I'd expect any sort of colonization effort to have plans for a base camp from the start. It may be temporary but I'd expect at least a large inflatable habitat.
Point taken about field work. Although I wouldn't be expecting an early Mars colony to be doing much more than establishing a mars colony for quite some time. We wouldn't want them to stop engaging in farming and construction just
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Yes, but there's more Nazis living on the far side of the Moon who still know how to do everything.
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Yes, but there's more Nazis living on the far side of the Moon who still know how to do everything.
The GSNR, sure; but the supply is only sufficient for thirty project days at full space-race level funding, so we have to make sure we're totally committed lest we squander them.
Do they have better gloves? (Score:2, Insightful)
In normal spacesuits, it is painful to use your hands and eventually you will lose your fingernails due to chafing inside of the gloves. From a user's comfort perspective, this is probably the biggest issue. Spacewalkers would love this tech if it has decent flexible gloves that are resistant to puncturing (which is among the reasons traditional gloves are built so rigidly).
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This is Slashdot not an academic paper, the burden is on the reader to find references not the writer to provide them.
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I have never heard of an astronaut who lost his/her fingernails. Where did you get this info?
I saw this on TV. One case involved a young psychiatric patient named Samara; she spent seven days trying to claw her way out of the suit at the bottom of a gravity well.
That's lame (Score:1)
Seriously, that amount of research and money, all the way out on BFE Mars, and a suit tear means using a glorified ace bandage? That suit should be virtually impenetrable and/or self-healing.
Major issue with space suits ... (Score:5, Informative)
... is the need to maintain sufficient internal pressure to sustain human life without being too stiff to work in for long periods. Suits made more skin tight [wikipedia.org] are the current area of research. That seems to be what MIT is working on.
I'd like to see some work along the lines of a smart G suit [wikipedia.org] type garment that can sense the occupant's movements and compensate by reshaping itself dynamically. Probably something based on artificial muscle fibers rather than compressed air.
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The problem with all the high tech approaches is power. We simply don't have a portable power source that could supply energy for long enough to make any of the really cool ideas work.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mars does have air pressure (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, Mars suits have to withstand the sandstorms there.
Re:Mars does have air pressure (Score:4, Informative)
That may or may be worse than the moon where the dust particles are unpolished (and so very abrasive) and stick to everything due to static charges that don't dissipate in vacuum.
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100mph winds aren't a big deal when the atmospheric pressure is ~1/100 of that on Earth (except, of course, for the dust issue). It's not like it's going to blow you over or anything.
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ISTR the "walkers" used in Red Mars were along the lines of the suits described in the article, i.e. a form-fitting mechanical resistance suit, rather than a pressure suit. There was also some sort of open-cycle breathing system that was much less bulky that what we have today, but I can't remember the details.
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Your skin is pretty resilient to pressure, so you can survive (briefly) in a vacuum if necessary. The scene in Titan A.E. where the protagonist busts out the cockpit window and uses a fire extinguisher for propulsion to flying through space without a spacesuit is at least somewhat realistic and could in theory actually happen... assuming you could get into an air lock under a minute or so and get it to quick repressurize so you could catch a breath of air. You would be in pain, but still be alive.
Basicall
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Your skin is pretty resilient to pressure, so you can survive (briefly) in a vacuum if necessary. The scene in Titan A.E. where the protagonist busts out the cockpit window and uses a fire extinguisher for propulsion to flying through space without a spacesuit is at least somewhat realistic and could in theory actually happen... assuming you could get into an air lock under a minute or so and get it to quick repressurize so you could catch a breath of air. You would be in pain, but still be alive.
You can survive for 1, maybe 2 minutes without lasting damage. But you lose consciousness in 10-15 seconds, because your lungs are void of oxygen. Even though "used" blood returning to your lungs still has ~75% oxygenated, that oxygen leaves your blood (and gets sucked out your windpipe). Not at all like exhaling and holding your empty breath, because there the residual air in your lungs always has at least enough oxygen to be equilibrium with your blood, so it recirculates at low oxygen content instead of
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They had a scene like this in 2001: A Space Odyssey too; Bowman had to go from his small ship to an airlock on the Discovery without a suit. The whole process only took a few seconds though. I think the biggest problem is that the small blood vessels on your eyeballs will burst, but they'll heal.
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An important distinction is that KSR also had at that point in the books a significant terraforming project on Mars which had put approximately 200-300 millibars of pressure into the Martian atmosphere. It wasn't perfect, but it was survivable.
How did he propose to do this? I thought getting Mars to hold a significant atmosphere wasn't really likely because 1) it doesn't have that much gravity (1/3g), and 2) it doesn't have a magnetic field to protect against solar winds. And without a liquid iron core, i
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An important distinction is that KSR also had at that point in the books a significant terraforming project on Mars which had put approximately 200-300 millibars of pressure into the Martian atmosphere. It wasn't perfect, but it was survivable.
How did he propose to do this? I thought getting Mars to hold a significant atmosphere wasn't really likely because 1) it doesn't have that much gravity (1/3g), and 2) it doesn't have a magnetic field to protect against solar winds. And without a liquid iron core, it can't be made to have a magnetic field.
There was a whole suite of ideas for increasing the atmosphere of Mars, and that is sort of the point of the first two books in terms of talking about those techniques. Sure, the atmosphere won't stick around for billions of years, but it will remain on Mars for millions of years.... long enough that on the scale of human civilizations is more than long enough and long enough that life will even evolve and adapt to life on Mars in its own unique way. The people who are around in 2-3 million years can worr
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Interesting. That sure sounds like a lot of trouble for terraforming however, esp. that planetary-size Fresnel lens (since Mars isn't that close to the Sun); wouldn't it be easier to terraform Venus if you're going to go to all that effort? Venus is closer to the sun (no Fresnel lens needed, though you may need a way to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the surface), and it has nearly earth-level gravity, instead of a puny 1/3g. You just have to figure out how to deal with the atmosphere, but there's
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In the series there was a mention of the other planets later on. The subject of Venus is brought up and the solution is similar. While the "soletta" built to help terraform mars is an arrangement of mirrors to concentrate extra solar power for greater surface insolation, the Venusian one was built to do the exact opposite.
They designed it to reflect away as much of the incoming solar power as they could feasibly manage, and were patiently waiting for the entire atmosphere to freeze out as the planet cooled
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part of people's problem with vacuum, is they seem to mentally correlate it with pressure like on a submarine.
Breaking news (Score:2)
The suit would be a degree safer
Is that more or less than a "smidge"?
While a puncture of scrape
I'll assume that's meant to be "or scrape." What constitutes a scrape in a spacesuit, anyway?
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Same as for skin I would assume.
Duct Tape To The Rescue (Score:2)
Well, I think they're talking about hard-shell suits here, so I am assuming a "scrape" is probably a breach more like a scratch or tear than a hole.
Close, but no cigar. (Score:2, Interesting)
While an easily patchable suit seems like a great idea, what we really need is a suit that patches itself. Astronauts may not be able to see or reach the site of a suit puncture, in which case their screwed. A suit that has some sort of self-sealing properties or maybe with a thin layer of that green goop used to seal bicycle tires from punctures would be a better idea IMO.
Old news, but at least they didn't include photos. (Score:2)
Her own design page, including some photos of the construction process: http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit/ [mit.edu]
What looks to be a hapless grad student modeling it (but that's just a guess on my part): http://alumweb.mit.edu/groups/amita.old/images/people/Newman.jpg [mit.edu]
Cnet slideshow: http://news.cnet.com/2300-11397_3-6197224.html [cnet.com]
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What's strange is how old and vauge it all is. There's pics of the same stuff from 2000. Have they made any progress since then? They've got some cool pictures, but are they willing to set foot in a Mars-simulated atmosphere yet? If not, what do they need to do to get there, and how much progress have they made on those problems in the last decade?
been there, done that (Score:2)
I have no fewer than six different space suit designs appropriate for Mars and wearable by humans. I also have a couple for Reticulans but I can't make them, just trade for them.
UFO Afterlight: underrated :)
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Sounds like a typical American.
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you again! excellent!
"hey guize, please get back to being boring and having no hope - you're all spoiling my downer here."
"Magic happens" (Score:3)
"Temperature and moisture control".
Remember the Far Side cartoon where two scientists are staring at a chalkboard and "magic happens" is written in the middle? Yeeeeaaaaaaaah.
Newman needs to spend less time showing herself off wearing mockups and playing celebrity space cadet - and more time actually working on the practical problems. A significant amount of sweat is generated by the body even under light exertion. Moderate exertion is even worse. For example, when cycling in comfortable summer temperatures, it's easy to go through a litre of water or more every hour.
There's also the problem of insulation from temperatures ranging from as high as 31 degrees below freezing, to -161 degrees F. That's roughly the temperature where carbon dioxide precipitates into a solid, folks.
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stillsuits!
Say what now? (Score:1)
Is this suit full of fail already?
I was under the impression you didn't really need a pressure suit on Mars. A good winter coat and an oxygen mask, sure.
Now keeping Earth bacterial fauna off Mars is another issue. But there's no deadly fear of a suit puncture.
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I was under the impression you didn't really need a pressure suit on Mars. A good winter coat and an oxygen mask, sure.
Your impression is seriously misinformed. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 6 mbar. Humans cannot survive below about 62 mbar without a pressure suit.
Jerry Pournelle described these in the 1970s (Score:2)
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ixnae on the prior art-ae! we don't want Apple to sue MIT into nonexistence!
Since 1968 (Score:1)
Her website shows a list of papers on this subject:
www.elasticspacesuit.com/documentation/ [elasticspacesuit.com]
First one is from 1968. I know it is a bit pessimistic but this seems like the skin tight space suit is one of those perpetual tech dreams (alongside flying cars, fusion power plants, space elevators, hypersonic aircraft etc.) where once in a while someone comes up and says that we have the technology now or is just around the corner (only wait for 5 more years...).
From looking at the history of technological innovatio