In the background of of my novels, there’s a problem every science fiction writer who has written about space travel has to deal with. Space suits. If your heroes are going to be doing, really, anything in space beyond being spam in a can, they need to suit up to do it.
In the early pulp stories, the female characters wound up with brass bras, but in the 21st Century we are far beyond such things.
In my novels, specifically “Expedition” and the Portal Authority Contract series, the action takes place on other worlds, which are hostile to varying degrees, and in space. In each case, the characters do not have years or unlimited money to deal with the problem.
The fundamental problem to be solved by a space suit is that the human body needs a minimum force of approximately 4.5 pounds per square inch over every square inch of that body or bad things happen to said body. There are two ways to apply that pressure. One is the conventional one of having a pressurized balloon around every part of the human body. The other is to apply that pressure mechanically. Anyone who has worn compression style running clothes has felt such pressure.
Conventional space suits based on current technology have a number of serious drawbacks. The first of these is that they are very expensive. NASA pays approximately 20 million dollars a throw for its current space suits. That kind of money could get you a couple of executive jets with some change left over for fuel and maintenance.
Those who, like me, who suspect NASA is not getting value for its money have company in NASA itself. NASA released a report on the development of its space suits, available here from NASA itself, which states as much in precise detail. Personally, I applaud NASA for its openness in publishing a report which is certainly going to generate adverse comment. The short version is that by the time NASA fields its new generation of suits in 2025 (assuming no schedule slips) the development costs will be about a billion dollars US.
The current generation of NASA space suits was fielded in 1990. They have definite drawbacks. Chris Hadfield, the distinguished astronaut and Commander of the ISS (among many other accomplishments) described the process in detail in his book “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth”. Suiting up takes about four hours, all being well, not to mention time required for the minutely thorough system checks which NASA insists on. Some of the systems are very vulnerable to damage, too, such as the umbilical connectors to the suit, which he specifically mentions as being fragile and easily damaged. The compound applied to the faceplate of the helmet will blind the astronaut (only temporarily, fortunately) if it gets into his eyes, and Commander Hadfield found out about that little problem the hard way.
The current generation of suits also has a serious problem with gloves. Hand injuries are common, and one that shows up pretty frequent frequently is “fingernail delamination”, NASA’s euphemism for having a fingernail ripped off. Imagine for a moment that you’re doing a difficult, technical and physically exhausting job, and someone takes a pair of pliers and rips off one of your fingernails in the middle of it. You are then expected to carry on and complete the task, not allowing the agonizing pain to distract you.
Astronauts do this, and go out and do it again when needed. Astronauts are extraordinary people by any standard. They deserve better from their equipment.
Professor Dava Newman at MIT is the leading proponent of the mechanical pressure approach, hereafter in this post referred to as skin suits. She has a world class collection of t-shirts, including a stint as a senior official of NASA, so her technical chops are not in doubt.
She has been working this problem for years at MIT on a shoestring. It’s not a simple one, but she has made a lot of progress. Given the fairly modest amount of money she would need to put together a Tiger Team and go after this problem, it’s a mystery to me and many others why she isn’t having money thrown at her to develop a key enabling technology for any manned mission.
Skin suits have been developed since the 70’s, some to the point of being tested on warm human bodies in vacuum. They solve the problem of cooling by relying on the human body’s own cooling system, sweating. None has ever been flown in space, so Professor Newman’s work rests on a solid foundation of prior work.
From a literary standpoint, I can very plausibly say that my characters can have better suits allowing far better mobility at much less cost.
In the real world, why such a promising technology has been underfunded, neglected and ignored for so many decades is quite beyond me, but perhaps it will get the attention it deserves at long last.
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