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"Space Suit" is also an Instrumental track from They Might Be Giants ' 1992 Album A space suit is a complex system of Garment s, equipment and environmental systems designed to keep a person alive and comfortable in the harsh environment of outer space. This applies to Extra-vehicular Activity outside Spacecraft orbiting Earth and has applied to walking, and riding the Lunar Rover , on the Moon . Some of these requirements also apply to . Space suits are also used when dealing with certain types of Biological Hazard s. SPACESUIT REQUIREMENTS Several things are needed for the spacesuit to function properly in space. It must provide:
THEORIES OF SPACESUIT DESIGN space suit]] during '' Shenzhou 5 '']] A space suit should allow its user natural and unencumbered movement. The only way this is possible is for the space suit to maintain a constant volume no matter what position the wearer is in. This is because Mechanical Work is needed to change the volume of a constant pressure system. If moving an arm or hand causes a change in the volume of the space suit, then the astronaut has to do extra work every time he bends that joint, and he has to maintain a force to keep the joint bent. Even if this force is very small, it can be seriously fatiguing to constantly fight against your suit. It also makes delicate movements very difficult. All space suit designs try to minimize or eliminate this problem. The most common solution is to form the suit out of multiple layers. The bladder layer is a rubbery, airtight layer much like a balloon. The restraint layer goes outside the bladder, and provides a specific shape for the suit. Since the bladder layer is larger than the restraint layer, the restraint takes all of the stresses caused by the pressure of the suit. Since the bladder is not under pressure, it will not "pop" like a balloon, even if punctured. The restraint layer is shaped in such a way that bending a joint will cause pockets of fabric, called gores, to open up on the outside of the joint. This makes up for the volume lost on the inside of the joint, and keeps the suit at a constant volume. However, once the gores are opened all the way, the joint cannot be bent anymore without a considerable amount of work. In some Russian spacesuits strips of cloth were wrapped tightly round the spaceman's arms and legs outside the spacesuit to stop the spacesuit from ballooning when in space. There are three theoretical approaches:
One inconvenience with some spacesuits is the head being fixed facing forwards and being unable to turn to look sideways: astronauts call this effect "alligator head". CONTRIBUTING TECHNOLOGIES Related preceding technologies include the Gas Mask used in WWII , the Oxygen Mask used by pilots of high flying bombers in WWII, the high altitude or Vacuum suit required by pilots of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird , the Diving Suit , Rebreather , Scuba diving gear and many others. The development of the spheroidal dome helmet was key in balancing the need for field of view, pressure compensation, and low weight. SPACESUIT MODELS OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
SPACESUITS IN FICTION Fiction authors have been trying to design spacesuits since the beginning of space fiction, as far as there was need to describe them in their stories. Most of them are flexible pressure suits, but usually not as bulky as in real spacesuits. Design was influenced by the real old-type stories. Skintight spacesuits ( Skinsuit s) appear in the original Buck Rogers Comics . The Buck Rogers scenario has become familiar enough to cause expressions such as "Buck Rogers outfit" for real protective suits that look somewhat like spacesuits. Skinsuits are more common in modern science fiction. On the other end of the spectrum one can find the ideas of heavy Powered Armor . Robert A. Heinlein's novel '' Have Space Suit-Will Travel '' draws on his experience designing pressure suits during World War II. It is possible that fictional spacesuit design influenced real spacesuit design somewhat, at least in getting real spacesuits to use a hard helmet and not a soft pressurized hood. Alien spacesuits in the Gerry Anderson UFO series are filled with a Breathable Liquid to resist acceleration stresses. After NASA started, fictional spacesuits often followed real spacesuit design, in such features as having a large rectangular backpack. In making the spacesuits that are seen in the Dune Movie , the Prop and Costume designers stated a need to avoid "that NASA look", and the same consideration may have arisen in some other movies and series. Spacesuits are commonly used in the Gundam Anime metaseries, but are often renamed to avoid confusion with space-use Mobile Suits (which are said to take their names from the fact that they are mechanically mobile evolutions of spacesuits). In the Universal Century timeline, spacesuits are called "normal suits", while the After Colony timeline uses the term "astrosuit". Gundam spacesuits often feature a pouch full of adhesive strips, used to temporarily seal tears in the suit or cracks in the helmet (as demonstrated in Mobile Suit Gundam and Char's Counterattack respectively). SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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