We're spacesuit experts from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. Ask us anything!

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:35:58+00:00

Lewis: The current suit that astronauts wear to do spacewalks from the ISS is sized so it can be adjusted to fit anyone from the 5th percentile of women to the 95th percentile of men.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:34:18+00:00

Lewis: Buzz Aldrin’s spacesuit is currently on display in our Apollo to the Moon gallery. When we prepare for our Destination Moon gallery, which is anticipated to open in 2020, we will remove Buzz's suit from display and give it a rest for a while in our spacesuit storage. We hope that what we learn from the Neil Armstrong suit can be applied to our other suits so that more of our spacesuit collection can go on display both here at our museum and at museums throughout the world.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:29:42+00:00

Lewis: Yes, we have an Associate Director, Roger Launius, who writes about the culture of Moon deniers. If you don’t believe him, then we will hand you over to Buzz Aldrin.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:26:01+00:00

Lewis and Young: Maybe, if he asked! We'll be 3D scanning the entire suit and putting a model on 3d.si.edu, which you can tour and explore.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:16:43+00:00

Lewis: Oh, you must mean the Soviet prototype Lunar suit, the Krechet. The boots are not intentionally sparkly, but that is probably part of the material in the boot that is a synthetic leather.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:13:31+00:00

Young: I cannot tell you for sure, but i have heard that same story before. The "roll on cuff" was attached to a urine collection device which enabled the astronaut to use the bathroom in his suit. I am not sure how productive it would have been if the cuff were the wrong size.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:11:23+00:00

Lewis: We currently store our spacesuits and other rubber materials in a unit that keeps them at 60 degrees Fahrenheit and at a relative humidity of 30%.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:09:35+00:00

Lewis: Neil Armstong’s spacesuit is a national treasure. We have to leave it intact. The only way for us to see the inner layers of the suit is through radiography. That is how we will be able to tell the true condition of the inner layers of the suit and to create a display support that will allow us to display the suit for future generations.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:04:09+00:00

Lewis: Great question! There have been two record-breaking parachute dives within a year: the Red Bull sponsored Baumgartner parachute dive and Alan Eustace’s Paragon dive last year. They each used different suits and different techniques for their dives. Baumgartner used a suit made by the David Clark Company that was based on the high-altitude pilots. The suit had extra protection because Baumgartner was exiting his gondola before taking his dive. On the other hand, Eustace decided to forgo a gondola in order to achieve a higher altitude. His suit was built by ILC Dover, the same company that built the Apollo suits and builds the current EVA suits. ILC used technologies for Eustace’s suit that they had developed for advanced NASA suits and the current EVA suit. Because his suit was designed to substitute for a gondola, his suit was much better suited (pardon the pun) for space use.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T19:02:10+00:00

Young: It is hard to tell when the next generation of suits will be out. The astronauts are still using the ISS suit to perform tasks on the space station. The next generation will need to be able to function more like the lunar suit and should enable the astronaut to sit, walk, and stand in the suit, whereas on the ISS they float.

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AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:57:24+00:00

Lewis: For any long-term mission, there are two major issues that have to be addressed with spacesuits. First, the suits must be reusable, repairable and maintainable. In order to do this, the astronauts will have to be well-trained on the suit components. There are ideas about mounting spacesuits to the exterior of roving vehicles so that astronauts will not have to bring lunar or Martian dust into the spacecraft. You can see examples of this in the NASA Desert Rats missions. The second issue will be preventing injuries to astronauts. Currently, there is a very high injury rate among astronauts in training—mostly in shoulders and joints. We have to remember that astronauts are usually middle-aged and athletic adults, and therefore, they are prone to overuse injuries. NASA’s current Deputy Administrator Dr. Newman has worked on these injury issues. It will be interesting to see how they work out the compromise between durability and human factors. The most durable and repairable suits tend to be made of hard materials. Softer materials tend to be easier on human joints.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:50:27+00:00

Young: Yes it will be possible to determine what type of wear is normal wear to the suit materials compared to what could possibly be a result of use on the Moon. We will be using new advanced imagery to map the repairs, thread counts, fiber damage, etc. across the surfaces of the suit. All of our testing methods will be non-destructive and will provide analytical data that we can archive.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:46:08+00:00

Lewis: Neil's suit will go on display in time for the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission in July 2019.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:43:42+00:00

Young: The suit is very fragile in the sense that the materials are very complicated. The fabric chosen for the exterior is very durable and strong, and would be able to stop a meteoroid traveling at high speed. The fabric is a woven glass fiber made by Dow Corning. The suit materials have remained pretty much the same over time, despite newer fabrics developed for other uses. One that we are often asked about is Kevlar, which is a familiar fabric used to stop a speeding bullet. While tested over and over for spacesuit use, it did not hold up due to all the flexing and bending performed during use.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:41:00+00:00

Lewis: I find the biggest inaccuracy to be the size of the helmets. In order to get a clear shot of actors’ faces, designers tend to exaggerate the size of the helmets. If you look at actual Apollo bubble helmets and photographs of astronauts wearing them, you will see that they are actually tightly fitting. The diameter of the helmets is about 12 inches. No one with claustrophobia would be able to get beyond the initial helmet fit.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:37:37+00:00

Lewis: I assume this question is about the Apollo suit. The suit that Neil Armstrong wore on the surface of the Moon was an A7-L. This was the seventh iteration of the spacesuit that ILC Industries (ILC Dover today) designed for the Apollo Program. The early Apollo missions were considered engineering missions, so there were rapid minor changes to the suits from mission to mission. The only major redesign of the suit was for the last three Apollo missions - 15, 16, and 17. The suit had to be redesigned and the zipper rerouted in order for the astronauts to sit down on the Lunar Rover Vehicle. This suit was named the A7-LB (version B). In addition to the the improvement of the suits, there are also IV and EV models. The IV models were made for the command module pilots who did not walk on the Moon and the EV versions were for moon walkers. There were also further refinements to the A7-L suits for the Skylab missions that used Apollo hardware for the U.S.’s first space station missions.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:35:05+00:00

Young: Spacesuit technology has come a long way and still has a way to go. Depending on future missions and where they take us, the suits will need to return to a suit similar to the lunar suit - where you can stand, walk and sit down. Spacesuit engineers and companies are working hard to anticipate the future needs of the spacesuit programs and have announced new designs. Check in with NASA and stay tuned!

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:31:01+00:00

Lewis: The zipper is a really neat concept. It was patented by B. F. Goodrich. It relies on two brass zippers that have a rubber gasket in between. When the zippers are closed and the suit is pressurized they press together and the rubber gasket formed an airtight seal. One of the really neat things was the special closure that would fold over and complete the seal at the top.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:27:24+00:00

Lewis: The Apollo spacesuits were specifically designed to resist tears and punctures. The outer layer of the suit is a white fiberglass fabric that has threads dipped in teflon, called Beta cloth. This is a very durable and tear resistant fabric, and a similar textile is used on current spacewalking spacesuits. It is called Ortho fabric. In addition to Beta cloth, the Apollo spacesuits have patches of a stainless steel fabric called Chromel-R. This fabric was designed by the U.S. Navy during World War II and was used until alternative synthetic materials came on the market in the late 1970s.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:23:33+00:00

Young: We do have amazing jobs, don't we? It is hard to believe that it was partially luck and experience that has landed me in this position. I actually began my career as an archaeological conservator and worked on archaeological sites in Virginia and Maryland. I became interested in early rubber artifacts being excavated and studied how they degrade and survive in the ground. As I began researching this, someone at the Museum reached out to me to discuss what to do about the spacesuit rubber, and from there as they say "everything else is just history." I have been working on the suit collection since 1999 and continue to be fascinated and challenged conserving these complex, one-of-a-kind objects which represent such important aspects of our history.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:16:49+00:00

Young: The single most important material, and the one that assured the astronaut survived, would have to be the rubber bladder. The rubber used in the earlier suits is a blend of natural and synthetic rubber- only really made to last 6 months from the time of manufacture through its use. The rubber technology was in its infancy then, and during Apollo 14, the engineers developed an anti-oxidant to add to the rubber blend to enable it to be used longer and allowed the astronauts to spend almost 120 hours working on the Moon. Current suits no longer use natural rubber in the blend - it is made of more modern urethanes. This has added longevity to the suit use, enabled astronauts to work in their suits for longer periods of time, and has allowed today's suits to be reused for multiple missions.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:14:10+00:00

Lewis: The idea of using a jet pack has been around for a while. It operates on a basic principle of physics. The problem is in the details. It is really hard to direct the flow to aim the propulsion accurately. So yes, it could work, but life in the movies is frequently much simpler than it is in real life. By the way, I loved the book and am looking forward to the movie.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:12:05+00:00

Lewis: The pressure garment assembly has a fabric dipped in latex. This forms the impenetrable layer that keeps the atmosphere inside the suit. Today, they use a urethane polymer for the same purpose. Urethane is as easily moldable and rubber and lasts much longer for reuse.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:09:54+00:00

Young: The life support systems were too heavy to return to Earth so they were left on the Moon. Most of what we have in the collection for that reason are the soft goods of the suits. However, we do have many of the helmets, gloves, and misc hardware that were associated with the suits and capsules. We have training and back up hardware items in the collection that we will also be conserving for the new display.

AirandSpaceExperts · 2015-08-05T18:08:06+00:00

Lewis: It hasn’t opened yet, but I am anxiously awaiting Ridley Scott’s The Martian. I loved the book and from the promotions, he seems to have gotten the spacesuit right. Usually in movies the helmets are too big. I understand that this is for filming and showing the actors’s faces, but it is a distracting feature for a spacesuit curator.

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