Eaten Alive
Today NASA released photos showing slow progress on hardware for the Moon. You can see the whole gallery here. The Orion CEV is a mockup made of wood and would not last one second in Space. The CEV and spacesuit are pictured in publicity paintings of people reaching the Moon.
Astronaut Andrew Feustel is eaten alive by the Mark III advanced space suit technology demonstrator. He is supported by cables and other devices because the suit is too heavy for a man to walk in. He seems to have no way of removing his helmet or even raising the visor. How many times have you seen astronauts raise their visors for comfort?
This month I hope you see a spacecraft technology that wil make human spaceflight safer, easier, and far more comfortable.
posted by L. Riofrio at 5:41 AM
3 Comments:
Dear Loiuse,
Here is something you will probably like. A dramatic depiction of a manned landing on Venus--with a guy in a special titanium supercooled spacesuit--from the(bbc) series "Voyage to the Planets":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=pWiw0SdkjOQ
Neat video, nice sense of danger. Mission Control has the moody Ridley Scott look. Venus is one place where a heavy spacesuit would come in handy. The time delay in communication is not dealt with.
Though exhausted, the astronaut takes no time at all changing out of his armour and into another suit for ascent. His copilot doesn't get up to help him out.
NASA animations optimistically show animated characters wearing the Mark III, ignoring the difficulties of wearing it. The movies are still fun to watch.
If you go to amazon.com and type in "voyage to the planets" under dvd it should be the first thing that comes up. It is going for about $13. I highly recommend it. (They have the year wrong at amazon--it was made in 2003 and not 1986). It is in 2 or 3 parts and extremely well done in the style of 2001:A Space Odyssey, and features an imagined future seven-year voyage to Venus, Mars, Io, Saturn and finally Pluto. Great on a wide-screen tv with stereo. The heavy duty suit is used again on the surface of Io.
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