Transcripts For CSPAN3 Apollo Spacesuits 20240714 : comparem

After the first u. S. Moon landing. Panelists including designers. The space museum was the host of this event here in washington, d. C. Weve assembled a panel of speakers, a really fantastic. Some of my favorite people i like to talk to when talking about spacesuits, to recount the making of the apollo spacesuits and to inform us on the lessons that we have learned as we are going back to the next spacesuit in the next thing in spacesuit development, be it going back to the moon, going to an asteroid or going on to mars. In order to save time for tonights program, im going to introduce all four speakers and theyre going to come up and tell their stories and then well have time for discussion and questions from the audience at the end. Our speakers tonight in order of appearance are first bill airy, who is a recently retired test engineer at ilc dover, the company that made the apollo spacesuits and the suits that astronauts use to space walk from the iss when they leave via the american port on the International Space station. The next speaker for tonight will be ryan nagata, an artist and maker from california who did a sort of unique approach to becoming a maker and model maker. He started out as a film director and discovered that he his real passion was making models, props, and costumes for hire. Theyre featured in many movies. Ryan will talk about his experience of recreating some of the vintage suits that were used in the movie first man, the biopic about Neil Armstrong. And then the third speaker was a russian lead spacesuit designer at the company in the ussr in russia. And he is has come to this country and participated in spacesuit glove designs and won the competition of the spacesuit glove design. He now has a company of his own based in brooklyn and he is going to talk about his perspective on spacesuits in light of his career as a russian spacesuit designer and engineer and an american spacesuit entrepreneur. Our last speaker for the evening will be dr. David newman who is the apollo professor of astronautics and everything engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of technology. And shes the one of the few people i can say has a better job title than i do. Really amazing. Dr. Newman will talk about the next generation of responsive materials for spacesuits to make these form fitting spacecraft truly a perfect fit for exploration. Im going to introduce our first speaker. Hes going to talk about the apollo spacesuits. Thank you for that wonderful introduction, kathy. Its an honor to be invited by this panel. Its quite a panel. I thank you all for coming tonight. So lets start with the slide presentation. I have, like, you know, five minutes to cover 40, 50 years of history of apollo. Ill make this pretty fast. I try to do it as best i can. I start from the humble beginnings. This is very early ilc spacesuit developed by len shepard developing suits at the time. He saw a need to support the vision of humans working in outer space. Len shepard was an ils engineer working on the helmets. You see the helmet in the photo. They were used for High Altitude suits. He pondered how they were being used at the time, and he realized the future of humans in space is not far off. But he could see that there was only b. F. Goodrich with the flight suits. But there is now true spacesuits out there. This is early. Were talking 1950s. We knew that humans were going fly into space. So he proposed the company that they provide plumbing for developing such a suit. This funding is split ultimately about 50 50 through the 1950s and early 1960s. By 1956, i just want to say that he was hired and a few others to help carry that torch to next level. I mentioned george. He was quite an inventor who helped carry the suit to the next level. The next slide here, this is our first entry into the apollo contract. So through the 50s and early 60s we get the contracts and develop this suit. Many of them didnt really have a suit. They had a design. They had ideas on paper. We were one of the few that had a true suit. Bf goodrich also had a suit. But as fate would have it, we were teamed as a subcontractor. Len and the others at ilc were thrilled when he announced the man on the moon returning safely to the earth. They felt that they had the solution but unfortunately for them they recognized that the Small Division of the Playtex Corporation which is what we were had little to offer in the way of Systems Engineering and quality liability thus they teamed us with hampton standard, an aerospace company. It was the right decision n given all the thought that went into it. We had engineers that could build a suit like this but to have the rigor that nasa was looking for, it wasnt going to happen the way we were set up at the time. So the ilc suits, nasas period between is the 62 as we were working with this subcontractor between 62 and 65, the easterly you suits had a long way to go. The basic design is taking shape. If you can imagine how comfortable it is working in that suit, not very. You see rubber con voluvolutes. So the knees and shoulders and elbows had very good mobility. But when you tried to put this big helmet on it, it increased the size of the bulk of the torso section across the shoulders. It just really made for a bulky suit. Again, this was the early stages of apollo. That is the way anything happens, right . You design rockets and the hardware that goes with it. You have failures and you have to explore along the way. Thats what was happening. So second contract bid. The Company President just told me a story about the fact that they would design something and hamilton would want to test it and test it. And it wasnt you have to test. Trust me. Im the guy that tests things, but theres a point where you call it quits. He didnt know what hamilton didnt know when to call it quits. That is part of the problem. There is also the part on hamilton to take the business away to free us up. We didnt see it that way. That didnt sit well. February of 1965, hamilton announced they would drop ilc from the team, working with bf goodrich on future designs. They already started them designing different joints. They decided to open up the contract. They had a couple suits. They had problems. They had Serious Problems with overheating and mobility. They had a groundwork. Something that was flying anyway. In nasas mind, they thought, maybe david clark will be the suit to go to. But Hamilton Team and they thought okay, b. F. Goodrich and david clark will have a contest to run off and see what would happen. So ilc went to nasa and protested saying, you know, we really got a short end of the deal here when you forced us to team with hamilton. But we understand. We want a second shot at it. Nasa agreed. They learned their lesson on that they said okay you have six weeks to put the suit in. So for six weeks around the clock, you know, we had a handful of people. We had engineers and seamstresses. They busted their next and in six weeks produced this suit. It turned out to be the winning suit. The other two didnt have good mobility, a lot of issues. Even our suit had issues, but they were issues we knew could be fixed. When you design something new, you develop it. So thats you see this suit was a lot more form fitting. It was tailored, it was a suit we wanted from the beginning without the hamilton engineers without telling us how to build it. It ended up being the a 7 l lunar suit. It started out as ax 5 which is what you saw previously. We eventually made the 7l suit. They did an outstanding job. Hit poor waist mobility though. When they were getting in the command modules, they had a strap to pull to pull the waist together. The arms were not very good. There were a lot of problems with it. And then we get to the model a7 lb suit. In 1968 before we flew apollo 11, we had the engineers go to houston in september 20th and present this suit. At the time we called it the omega suit. It provided increased mobility. Can you see the side view of the suit. There is a zipper. It comes down from the chest and goes across the back. It was a zipper that was a spiral wound zipper. It held it airtight in the suit. It freed up the waist section so we could get mobility in the waist joint. They could sit in the rovers and provide a lot more mobility. We also added a new arm design that they liked. So that really did it justice. It was first presented in 68. For looking for the hard suit. They wondered if they wanted us to give them any more work. They liked the suits and immediately asked ilc to certify the arm design so the first lunar crew could have the arms. They expedited the certification process and in late april we began work to remove the arms in Neil Armstrong and buzz aldrins prime suits and replace them with the new arm configuration. This was accomplished by the first week of june 69, a few weeks before the apollo mission. We would constantly get suits after checks and put new zippers in them. This was quite a turn around to take the prime suits for the missions and rip the arms off and put new arms on with the new design and we just certified weeks before. So you could see what our troops were going through at the time. Quite a bit. In 1976, our company had downsized by that time like 25 people. Because we put all our eggs in one basket. We didnt have fwhig left us in. We ran out of gas. There is no other contracts for apollo. So we were down 25 people. We knew if we held on we can win the shuttle contract. We did. And we knew at the time again that we didnt have the resources to do this on our own. So at that point hamilton came to us and we came to them. I didnt know all the specific details. Waits agreed, hamilton said, look, you establish yourself as a space suit provide we are nasa. And we think that we should team up and we will not tell you how to build a space suit. Well be out of the space suit business but a prime contract. And well do the management, you know, configuration management, Systems Engineering and support you. We just figure at the time 25 people had, you know, that was about our only choice. We said yes, lets do. We teamed up, ended up winning that contract, of course, its the International Space station suit now. Our history is constantly evolving. We had 21 suit designs. More than 280 suits. I talked to a couple engineers. Were a little over that. But its just the roll of the dice. Hard to keep track of the suits, designs, and numbers. But that is a rough number. We built for nasa. We have the suit that was worn in space dive, the junk he made from 25 miles up. We built that suit for allen houston and no loss of life or any mishaps due to any space suit assembly. We had minor things happen but nothing that caused the mission any issues on the moon, for sure. And that provided like 440 evas and 3100 total eva hours. There was some issues with suits with the primary lifesupport system. It wasnt our suit. So ilc, we have a use in office. Were developing the next generation suits. Focus on light weight design, less hardware, reconfigureable to fit more Diverse Group of astronauts. Its like soft upper torsos. Can be reconfigured in sizes. The suits are designed for planetary use. We have a lower torso used for extra activity in lower g or put a softer torso up there. So youll have more lower torso mobility. Knee and ankle flex and good fit. The complete design verification by the end of 2019. One of our engineers talked to dave today and i think he said the suit was completed. The design verification test this week. So thats it. Thank you very much. Im going to turn this over to my good friend. Thank you, bill. Do i click . There we go. Sorry. Hi. Im ryan nagata, im an artist and maker in los angeles. Im noenl for making extremely probably best known for making extremely accurate replicas of spacesuits. The suits you see in this photo arent real. Theyre replicas that i made for a photo shoot. There are no photos of both astronauts on the moon. So this is not real. And just to prove it, thats another one in the same photo shoot. And that also never happened on the moon. I make all these spacesuits in my studio in los angeles. This is an a7 lb model suit that i made for a client a few years ago. I fabricate everything for these suits from scratch. Silkscreen the patches and pattern out the fabric pieces. I machine the metal fittings for them. I even cast replica neoprine convolutes for the suits. Not to hold any pressure but to make sure the suits are the right shape. As can you imagine, its taken a tremendous amount of research to make these suits as accurate as possible. There is familiar face there. I was doing some research at ilc a few months ago. The pieces make are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. This is an apollo bubble helmet i made recently. Its blown polly carbonate. Its almost a real helmet. I guess the real question is why do i do all this stuff . I used to work in hollywood as a director. But i would always make a lot of props and costumes for films and tv shows. He commissioned me to make him adam savage commissioned me to make him an apollo suit that he wore on episode on the show. And ever since then, i just had lots and lots of requests to make replica suits for private collectors and museums and also movies. This is allen bean, apollo 12 astronaut who is wearing a replica that i made. He said it was the most accurate replica he had ever seen. It is high praise from him. Allen was also a great artist. He was always looking at the forms and proportions of things. Thats a suit i made for my daughter. I dont just make apollo suits. This is from 1934. This was the first pressure suit and i made this for the stafford air and space museum. That is actually also a photograph i staged. Thats me in that suit. The real suit was on display here. Im told it will be there again. This is mercury suit i did for a film. Gemini suit that i made. Sometimes i want to do stuff from science fiction. This is William Shatners space suit costume from star trek. The helmet was missing. So they used that costume helmet on an episode of mork mindy and never saw it again. This is the real suit but missing the helmet. I fabricated all that just from watching the stills of the show and everything and doing a lot of research. Thats kind of an interesting little thing. That is allen hustus. He donated the suit he wore to the museum, but he wanted a replica. He asked me if i would do one so i made this. It has a lot of the real components on it. Cant take credit for the whole thing. The reason im probably here is because of this suit. This is a replica of the x 15 pressure suit. The real one is on left there. And i made this for the Neil Armstrong biopic first man last year. This is the costume ryan gosling wore when they recreated one of armstrongs flights. I was also a i made a number of other things for that film. I was also a suit consultant. And helped with a lot of things. Just because of all the research ive done, i get called to advise on these sorts of things. So i did a tremendous amount of research for that suit. This is joe angle who is the last living pilot of the x 15 program. He was a technical consultant on the film. And he just absolutely loved the suit. He said i got it completely right. And he also said this was his favorite suit that he ever wore if you know joe angle, he trained for apollo. He wore apollo suits. He flew on the shuttle. He has worn a lot of pressure suits. He kind of had an emotional moment looking at that suit again. Just those moments that have made this line of work that im in really very rewarding. So anyway, thats it for my intro. So i would like now to introduce nikolai. Hi, all. Thank you for coming. A lot of you know i am from russia. I am the lead designer and chief engineer from brooklyn, new york. We found a company and after getting a prize for a competition. Two people. [ inaudible ] so my background, im a spacesuit designer. I work on spacesuit design all my life. And i tested russian and a lot of american spacesuits. So on the picture, the color picture thats me. And i designed that suit. I have four patents in design and technology. I got green card as a scientists and last year i got american citizenship. [ applause ] so my Business Partner [ inaudible ] we created a company and we have new space suit design. We make space suits and the last contract and this year in 2019 we wanted for moon space boot design. So lets show the assembly. And the elbow joints outperform mobility and bend and torque more than two times. So we build spacesuit gloves for mars in 2015. Mars in 2015. So we have mobility for that glove. Metacarpal joints and you anemic some metacarpal joints with abductionabduction. And our thermal micromaterial has advanced thermal insulation from the best thermal insulation in the world made in the research center. Flexible and very, very effective. So, we have unique mechanical counterpressure design for glove assembly. And test subjects tested that glove in our studio. And thats technology for the future space exploration. So we have a team and a lot of interns in brooklyn, new york city. We have unique service we provide space suits experience. And since then, 450 people have tested our space suits. And nasa really loves that. So, we have space suits, low profile space suits for the glider and any small aircraft for High Altitude record attempts. So, our commercial iva or intervehicular activity space suit has very low weight and high mobility. Our spacesuits are only sold on american soil. And high adjustability. And that suit on the picture has 13 inches in height in case adjustments range. There is an opportunity suit. And we test it in zero gravity. The suit is tested for more than four days and 140 parables. So our spacesuits tested in the lookroom chambers and the fly simulators. And we passed oxygen testing with nasa. Nasa support us and with the spacex agreement for certification our space suits for all space flights. So, interesting, in 2008, five people, four men, one woman, during a few days tested for sky diving. Thats a very prominent market for High Altitude jumps. Water egress, in april 2019, it was second class. And connecticut had gotten Survival Systems together with the greatest space flight company. So thats we base our space suits from escape from an iron capsule from underwater. So were working on extra vehicular activities and spaceship prototype. And we have a plan to do the same in the Business Model for iva space suits or intervehicular activity. The test class will be in october in International Space<\/a> station. The next speaker for tonight will be ryan nagata, an artist and maker from california who did a sort of unique approach to becoming a maker and model maker. He started out as a film director and discovered that he his real passion was making models, props, and costumes for hire. Theyre featured in many movies. Ryan will talk about his experience of recreating some of the vintage suits that were used in the movie first man, the biopic about Neil Armstrong<\/a>. And then the third speaker was a russian lead spacesuit designer at the company in the ussr in russia. And he is has come to this country and participated in spacesuit glove designs and won the competition of the spacesuit glove design. He now has a company of his own based in brooklyn and he is going to talk about his perspective on spacesuits in light of his career as a russian spacesuit designer and engineer and an american spacesuit entrepreneur. Our last speaker for the evening will be dr. David newman who is the apollo professor of astronautics and everything engineering at the Massachusetts Institute<\/a> of technology. And shes the one of the few people i can say has a better job title than i do. Really amazing. Dr. Newman will talk about the next generation of responsive materials for spacesuits to make these form fitting spacecraft truly a perfect fit for exploration. Im going to introduce our first speaker. Hes going to talk about the apollo spacesuits. Thank you for that wonderful introduction, kathy. Its an honor to be invited by this panel. Its quite a panel. I thank you all for coming tonight. So lets start with the slide presentation. I have, like, you know, five minutes to cover 40, 50 years of history of apollo. Ill make this pretty fast. I try to do it as best i can. I start from the humble beginnings. This is very early ilc spacesuit developed by len shepard developing suits at the time. He saw a need to support the vision of humans working in outer space. Len shepard was an ils engineer working on the helmets. You see the helmet in the photo. They were used for High Altitude<\/a> suits. He pondered how they were being used at the time, and he realized the future of humans in space is not far off. But he could see that there was only b. F. Goodrich with the flight suits. But there is now true spacesuits out there. This is early. Were talking 1950s. We knew that humans were going fly into space. So he proposed the company that they provide plumbing for developing such a suit. This funding is split ultimately about 50 50 through the 1950s and early 1960s. By 1956, i just want to say that he was hired and a few others to help carry that torch to next level. I mentioned george. He was quite an inventor who helped carry the suit to the next level. The next slide here, this is our first entry into the apollo contract. So through the 50s and early 60s we get the contracts and develop this suit. Many of them didnt really have a suit. They had a design. They had ideas on paper. We were one of the few that had a true suit. Bf goodrich also had a suit. But as fate would have it, we were teamed as a subcontractor. Len and the others at ilc were thrilled when he announced the man on the moon returning safely to the earth. They felt that they had the solution but unfortunately for them they recognized that the Small Division<\/a> of the Playtex Corporation<\/a> which is what we were had little to offer in the way of Systems Engineering<\/a> and quality liability thus they teamed us with hampton standard, an aerospace company. It was the right decision n given all the thought that went into it. We had engineers that could build a suit like this but to have the rigor that nasa was looking for, it wasnt going to happen the way we were set up at the time. So the ilc suits, nasas period between is the 62 as we were working with this subcontractor between 62 and 65, the easterly you suits had a long way to go. The basic design is taking shape. If you can imagine how comfortable it is working in that suit, not very. You see rubber con voluvolutes. So the knees and shoulders and elbows had very good mobility. But when you tried to put this big helmet on it, it increased the size of the bulk of the torso section across the shoulders. It just really made for a bulky suit. Again, this was the early stages of apollo. That is the way anything happens, right . You design rockets and the hardware that goes with it. You have failures and you have to explore along the way. Thats what was happening. So second contract bid. The Company President<\/a> just told me a story about the fact that they would design something and hamilton would want to test it and test it. And it wasnt you have to test. Trust me. Im the guy that tests things, but theres a point where you call it quits. He didnt know what hamilton didnt know when to call it quits. That is part of the problem. There is also the part on hamilton to take the business away to free us up. We didnt see it that way. That didnt sit well. February of 1965, hamilton announced they would drop ilc from the team, working with bf goodrich on future designs. They already started them designing different joints. They decided to open up the contract. They had a couple suits. They had problems. They had Serious Problems<\/a> with overheating and mobility. They had a groundwork. Something that was flying anyway. In nasas mind, they thought, maybe david clark will be the suit to go to. But Hamilton Team<\/a> and they thought okay, b. F. Goodrich and david clark will have a contest to run off and see what would happen. So ilc went to nasa and protested saying, you know, we really got a short end of the deal here when you forced us to team with hamilton. But we understand. We want a second shot at it. Nasa agreed. They learned their lesson on that they said okay you have six weeks to put the suit in. So for six weeks around the clock, you know, we had a handful of people. We had engineers and seamstresses. They busted their next and in six weeks produced this suit. It turned out to be the winning suit. The other two didnt have good mobility, a lot of issues. Even our suit had issues, but they were issues we knew could be fixed. When you design something new, you develop it. So thats you see this suit was a lot more form fitting. It was tailored, it was a suit we wanted from the beginning without the hamilton engineers without telling us how to build it. It ended up being the a 7 l lunar suit. It started out as ax 5 which is what you saw previously. We eventually made the 7l suit. They did an outstanding job. Hit poor waist mobility though. When they were getting in the command modules, they had a strap to pull to pull the waist together. The arms were not very good. There were a lot of problems with it. And then we get to the model a7 lb suit. In 1968 before we flew apollo 11, we had the engineers go to houston in september 20th and present this suit. At the time we called it the omega suit. It provided increased mobility. Can you see the side view of the suit. There is a zipper. It comes down from the chest and goes across the back. It was a zipper that was a spiral wound zipper. It held it airtight in the suit. It freed up the waist section so we could get mobility in the waist joint. They could sit in the rovers and provide a lot more mobility. We also added a new arm design that they liked. So that really did it justice. It was first presented in 68. For looking for the hard suit. They wondered if they wanted us to give them any more work. They liked the suits and immediately asked ilc to certify the arm design so the first lunar crew could have the arms. They expedited the certification process and in late april we began work to remove the arms in Neil Armstrong<\/a> and buzz aldrins prime suits and replace them with the new arm configuration. This was accomplished by the first week of june 69, a few weeks before the apollo mission. We would constantly get suits after checks and put new zippers in them. This was quite a turn around to take the prime suits for the missions and rip the arms off and put new arms on with the new design and we just certified weeks before. So you could see what our troops were going through at the time. Quite a bit. In 1976, our company had downsized by that time like 25 people. Because we put all our eggs in one basket. We didnt have fwhig left us in. We ran out of gas. There is no other contracts for apollo. So we were down 25 people. We knew if we held on we can win the shuttle contract. We did. And we knew at the time again that we didnt have the resources to do this on our own. So at that point hamilton came to us and we came to them. I didnt know all the specific details. Waits agreed, hamilton said, look, you establish yourself as a space suit provide we are nasa. And we think that we should team up and we will not tell you how to build a space suit. Well be out of the space suit business but a prime contract. And well do the management, you know, configuration management, Systems Engineering<\/a> and support you. We just figure at the time 25 people had, you know, that was about our only choice. We said yes, lets do. We teamed up, ended up winning that contract, of course, its the International Space<\/a> station suit now. Our history is constantly evolving. We had 21 suit designs. More than 280 suits. I talked to a couple engineers. Were a little over that. But its just the roll of the dice. Hard to keep track of the suits, designs, and numbers. But that is a rough number. We built for nasa. We have the suit that was worn in space dive, the junk he made from 25 miles up. We built that suit for allen houston and no loss of life or any mishaps due to any space suit assembly. We had minor things happen but nothing that caused the mission any issues on the moon, for sure. And that provided like 440 evas and 3100 total eva hours. There was some issues with suits with the primary lifesupport system. It wasnt our suit. So ilc, we have a use in office. Were developing the next generation suits. Focus on light weight design, less hardware, reconfigureable to fit more Diverse Group<\/a> of astronauts. Its like soft upper torsos. Can be reconfigured in sizes. The suits are designed for planetary use. We have a lower torso used for extra activity in lower g or put a softer torso up there. So youll have more lower torso mobility. Knee and ankle flex and good fit. The complete design verification by the end of 2019. One of our engineers talked to dave today and i think he said the suit was completed. The design verification test this week. So thats it. Thank you very much. Im going to turn this over to my good friend. Thank you, bill. Do i click . There we go. Sorry. Hi. Im ryan nagata, im an artist and maker in los angeles. Im noenl for making extremely probably best known for making extremely accurate replicas of spacesuits. The suits you see in this photo arent real. Theyre replicas that i made for a photo shoot. There are no photos of both astronauts on the moon. So this is not real. And just to prove it, thats another one in the same photo shoot. And that also never happened on the moon. I make all these spacesuits in my studio in los angeles. This is an a7 lb model suit that i made for a client a few years ago. I fabricate everything for these suits from scratch. Silkscreen the patches and pattern out the fabric pieces. I machine the metal fittings for them. I even cast replica neoprine convolutes for the suits. Not to hold any pressure but to make sure the suits are the right shape. As can you imagine, its taken a tremendous amount of research to make these suits as accurate as possible. There is familiar face there. I was doing some research at ilc a few months ago. The pieces make are almost indistinguishable from the real thing. This is an apollo bubble helmet i made recently. Its blown polly carbonate. Its almost a real helmet. I guess the real question is why do i do all this stuff . I used to work in hollywood as a director. But i would always make a lot of props and costumes for films and tv shows. He commissioned me to make him adam savage commissioned me to make him an apollo suit that he wore on episode on the show. And ever since then, i just had lots and lots of requests to make replica suits for private collectors and museums and also movies. This is allen bean, apollo 12 astronaut who is wearing a replica that i made. He said it was the most accurate replica he had ever seen. It is high praise from him. Allen was also a great artist. He was always looking at the forms and proportions of things. Thats a suit i made for my daughter. I dont just make apollo suits. This is from 1934. This was the first pressure suit and i made this for the stafford air and space museum. That is actually also a photograph i staged. Thats me in that suit. The real suit was on display here. Im told it will be there again. This is mercury suit i did for a film. Gemini suit that i made. Sometimes i want to do stuff from science fiction. This is William Shatners<\/a> space suit costume from star trek. The helmet was missing. So they used that costume helmet on an episode of mork mindy and never saw it again. This is the real suit but missing the helmet. I fabricated all that just from watching the stills of the show and everything and doing a lot of research. Thats kind of an interesting little thing. That is allen hustus. He donated the suit he wore to the museum, but he wanted a replica. He asked me if i would do one so i made this. It has a lot of the real components on it. Cant take credit for the whole thing. The reason im probably here is because of this suit. This is a replica of the x 15 pressure suit. The real one is on left there. And i made this for the Neil Armstrong<\/a> biopic first man last year. This is the costume ryan gosling wore when they recreated one of armstrongs flights. I was also a i made a number of other things for that film. I was also a suit consultant. And helped with a lot of things. Just because of all the research ive done, i get called to advise on these sorts of things. So i did a tremendous amount of research for that suit. This is joe angle who is the last living pilot of the x 15 program. He was a technical consultant on the film. And he just absolutely loved the suit. He said i got it completely right. And he also said this was his favorite suit that he ever wore if you know joe angle, he trained for apollo. He wore apollo suits. He flew on the shuttle. He has worn a lot of pressure suits. He kind of had an emotional moment looking at that suit again. Just those moments that have made this line of work that im in really very rewarding. So anyway, thats it for my intro. So i would like now to introduce nikolai. Hi, all. Thank you for coming. A lot of you know i am from russia. I am the lead designer and chief engineer from brooklyn, new york. We found a company and after getting a prize for a competition. Two people. [ inaudible ] so my background, im a spacesuit designer. I work on spacesuit design all my life. And i tested russian and a lot of american spacesuits. So on the picture, the color picture thats me. And i designed that suit. I have four patents in design and technology. I got green card as a scientists and last year i got american citizenship. [ applause ] so my Business Partner<\/a> [ inaudible ] we created a company and we have new space suit design. We make space suits and the last contract and this year in 2019 we wanted for moon space boot design. So lets show the assembly. And the elbow joints outperform mobility and bend and torque more than two times. So we build spacesuit gloves for mars in 2015. Mars in 2015. So we have mobility for that glove. Metacarpal joints and you anemic some metacarpal joints with abductionabduction. And our thermal micromaterial has advanced thermal insulation from the best thermal insulation in the world made in the research center. Flexible and very, very effective. So, we have unique mechanical counterpressure design for glove assembly. And test subjects tested that glove in our studio. And thats technology for the future space exploration. So we have a team and a lot of interns in brooklyn, new york city. We have unique service we provide space suits experience. And since then, 450 people have tested our space suits. And nasa really loves that. So, we have space suits, low profile space suits for the glider and any small aircraft for High Altitude<\/a> record attempts. So, our commercial iva or intervehicular activity space suit has very low weight and high mobility. Our spacesuits are only sold on american soil. And high adjustability. And that suit on the picture has 13 inches in height in case adjustments range. There is an opportunity suit. And we test it in zero gravity. The suit is tested for more than four days and 140 parables. So our spacesuits tested in the lookroom chambers and the fly simulators. And we passed oxygen testing with nasa. Nasa support us and with the spacex agreement for certification our space suits for all space flights. So, interesting, in 2008, five people, four men, one woman, during a few days tested for sky diving. Thats a very prominent market for High Altitude<\/a> jumps. Water egress, in april 2019, it was second class. And connecticut had gotten Survival Systems<\/a> together with the greatest space flight company. So thats we base our space suits from escape from an iron capsule from underwater. So were working on extra vehicular activities and spaceship prototype. And we have a plan to do the same in the Business Model<\/a> for iva space suits or intervehicular activity. The test class will be in october in Canadian Space<\/a> agency. And we are going to make a lot of things with that suit. So thats not the only space suit, not the real space suit. Thats only a prototype. My space suit is on the International Space<\/a> station, but the suits have a long way to do that. So, thank you for your attention. I would love to invite david newman. [ applause ] hello. How is everyone doing . What a great evening. Im thrilled to be here. Bill, ryan, nikolay, kathy, this is an Amazing National<\/a> brain trust of space suit knowledge and design and history lesson, i think, for all of us. So, its my great pleasure to be here with all of you. And ill dare to take us into the future a little bit. So spacesuit is the worlds smallest spacecraft. The spacesuit equals spacecraft. All right . These are my apollo bloopers. The reason like to show these is because were going back to the moon. Weve been there, and we had this amazing suit. Can you imagine that . 50 years ago. And i do have the honor to be the Apollo Program<\/a> professor at m. I. T. And ive been waiting 50 years. We have to get back there. Now were going there to do a lot of science this time. Again, worlds smallest spacecraft shrunk around a person. It is heavy. Its not very mobile. Its actually hard to do your science. Thats the extra vehicular mobility suit. That is the current nasa suit that flew on the shuttle and is flown for 19 years now on International Space<\/a> station. We had to build space station. Were going a lot of experiments out there. Amazing amount of science. You take all the systems of a spacecraft, provide your pressure, give you your oxygen to breathe, you have to scrub out your Carbon Dioxide<\/a> and worry about temperature control, and now you shrink it around a person. And you want the person to stay alive, be safe, and get their work done. And on the right, that is a gas pressured suit. These are big bulky gas pressurized suits. Youre in a balloon. Thats good, were applying pressure but theyre hard to move against. So im a researcher. And we like to flip the design paradigm. So, rather than shrinking a spacecraft around a person, what if i said hey, this is a person. I like to study athletes. Im an aerospace engineer. What if i can design a suit from the skin literally, the skin out, a second skin suit . That means you kind of shrink wrap someone. You saw the earlier work on mechanical counter pressure. We still have to provide pressure. Its a pressure suit. And we need a third of an atmosphere. Spacesuits provide about 4. 3 pounds per square inch. Depending on what units we want to talk b but about a third of an ounce here. That is the design goal to reach. About a third of an atmosphere. And so in our research, we are going to the moon. I cant wait to get there. Its been 50 years. Lets get on with it. And heres some of the design and were going to get on to mars. We will become interplanetary. We will have people on the earth and mars. Earth is my favorite planet, mars number two. And its round trip. Youre going to come home and youre going to want to see your familiar will you. I would love to think about pushing the technology and the materials for the suit of the future. So, to do that, we study astronauts. My students grow up and become astronauts. In the lab were looking at full mobility. So, these are skin strain maps to millimeter precision metal. Everyone gets their own suit. It has to be custom designed and built because we have the technology, so why wouldnt we do that. What youre looking at here a little bit of the mathematics for you. These are this kind of circle pattern that i have, if you put infinitesimal circles all over your skin and moved freely, that circle would turn elliptical. My blue circle here turning into a green ellipse. Those red lines, those are bisecting diameters. For my circle, as it moves to an ellipse, it pivots. It pivots. It rotates, but these do not extend. These are called the lines of nonextension. Beautiful mathematics behind that, thats three dimensional iegen vector analysis. Its the math that drives that. Why is that important, these lines, these patternings . Thats where you put your electronics. Thats where you put your smart sensors. Thats how i know how my astronauts are performing. In the orthogonal direction, you use polymers that stretch a lot. Thats where you get the mobility from. In the middle here, we do use some active materials, kind of think of them as fancy zippers if you will. And we use shape memory alloys right now. Thats a nickel titanium, kind of known as muscle wires. Kind of cinch it up to get the pressure production we need. Were researching shape memory polymers as well. And just as literally as recently as this last couple months, were looking at say this fast twice hi hydrogentlemen nated boron nanotubes. Work of my material scientist friends. Why is that so exciting . It could be a huge break through for us thinking about the designs. We dont put the Radiation Protection<\/a> in the suit. Why . Because it does it massive and bulky. You do that in the rover. You live under the ground in lava tubes. I need my astronauts light and mobile. Theres new materials on the drawing board. Were spinning them into threads. If you give me something that has Radiation Protection<\/a>, i can put it in a thread, i can get back to making light weight skin fitting formal fitting suits. Thats the future that we see is mobile, light weight astronauts, people on mars exploring, a lot of people on the moon, and a lot of people in lower earth orbit. We will become interplanetary, inspired by this museum. What an incredible job to get neil and buzzs suits back again. Im keeping it short and looking forward to wonderful q a with you all i think. Thank you for your attention. [ applause ] your final slide brings us full circle back to the ignite video and this growing not only are spacesuits becoming more diverse, but we as a museum are appealing to a more diverse audience. And trying to introduce them to the new technologies but the fact there are hidden stories throughout the museum we are going to tell. Space suits are not just about astronauts. Theyre about engineers and technicians, material scientists. And one question just to start this off for us discussing space suits and the program tonight is the role of testing. And that is a role that comes up repeatedly. And perhaps bill you can start it off as the senior test engineer from ilc dover. What is the role of testing, and how important is it in the Spacesuit Program<\/a> . Well, its everything. You know, when they started apollo out, you have design ideas, maybe an engineer has an idea of how to make a leg or arm work. You can design it and put someone in the suit and pressurize it. Theyre 3. 75 pounds per square inch. You can flex your elbow. If it flexed great, that would be fine. Thats what they did. They would get it in, certify the suits by doing these motions. Maybe halfway through a cable would break or the rubber would fail or something. They would have to start over again. Thats the way it goes. I think everybody understands that. If you design a car, its the same way. Take it down to the test track, find what breaks and fix it. Contributes a lot to my understanding of what happened. He was in houston when Neil Armstrong<\/a> walked on the moon. We were scared to death. We knew the suits were tested they could be tested in the lab. They could break things and fix it and break things and fix it. In the lab as far as mechanically the suits worked fine. They put it in a vacuum chamber and make sure it would work. They did all these things piecemeal. You do a test here and there. But when neil walked down that ladder, she was scared to death. That was the first test of a suit. You had the full environment you could never duplicate here on earth. Testing is everything. John young would get in the suit houston was a great example. He loved to try to break the suit. His goal was to break the suit in the lab. He did not want that suit broken on the moon. He had an idea of jumping up, as he came down he would splay his legs apart to get down to reach the rock on the surface. Those early suits didnt have good mobility. They were fine, given state of the art. If he could do that, he might be able to break it. He sure enough did. He broke a couple cables. Nasa said redesign the knee. We kept doing it and doing it over. Nasa was funding it. It was getting a little crazy. Finally everybody realized that on the lunar surface you only had 1. 6 g. So, that was irrelevant. On the way to the moon on one of the missions, John Mcmullin<\/a> called down to houston and said to jim, we just broke another cable in the suit. They said stop, stop testing right away, youre done, stop it because they realized we were overkeeling this thing. But i could go on all night. So im going to stop there. You get the idea. Testing was erg. We still do it today. In my lab i retired. I turned it over to somebody else. In that lab, theres guys we hired, that cycle test the suit. We have to find new suppliers. Its a new suit. Nasa cant fund a new suit design right now so were stuck with the suit we have. We cant build parts and send to nasa. With e have to certify the material. So, to this day we certify all the materials in the suit to make sure it holds up. So, thats my short long answer, my long short answer. I have another question then ill open to the audience. We were talking about s. T. E. M. What is the role of design and aesthetics to space suits . This is especially considering the prospect of sending humans out for long term human space flight, longterm exploration that may take years or more . So, what do you think the role is . Ill take that one first. I spent my whole career on s. T. E. M. Education, but i called it s. T. E. A. M. Im intentional about that. The arts are in. The arts are in. Yall paint the pictures. You tell the stories, you tell the history. I need the artists to paint the pictures. And d. Is for design. I have a new generation of makers out there. If they dont want to be aerospace engineer, it breaks my heart. Its important to widen the field. I talk to a lot of kids, s. T. E. M. Education is not for me. What do you know . Of course its for you. They have to see themselves. They have to have a sense of belonging. It has to be diverse. It has to be inclusive. Well race up s. T. E. M. If we raise everyone. Final click on that, because i had Catherine Johnson<\/a> up there, my hero, the mathematical genius who helped calculate our numbers. She was hidden. But were not hidden anymore. For all the kids out there or parents who want to go back to school, you dont have to be the best at math and physics and chemistry. How intimidating is that . Thats how i was taught as an engineer. You weed people out. Thats the wrong message. Im here to say those are tools. I use them every day. Whats your passion . Is it getting people to the moon, mars . Is it helping with climate change, all these things . As an educator we will lift everyone up. Were working on changing the message to s. T. E. A. M. D. Thank you for the questions. We need everyone. We just have a few minutes. Do we have questions for the audience . With the space suit design, what was the biggest stumper . What stumped you in the early design of the suits . To repeat that for the audience to hear, with the initial space suit design, what was the biggest show stopper. What stumped you most about the space suits . Mobility. Mobility and fit and comfort. The mobility because we won the contest because our suit was a little more mobile than the others. It wasnt a lot more mobile. But if you read the evaluation process about the early apollo suits, the feedback was it has more mobility. Yeah, absolutely. The gentleman right how much does a space suit cost . How much does a space suit cost . Well, you know, today its hard to put i say million dollars. Its hard to say because we dont build a suit anymore. We build parts of suits. Today we might have a pair of arms go out the door or a pair of boots. Now the back back built by hamilton, ive heard 10 million. The most expensive part is the primary life support system. How long does it take . Again, it takes various times. A pair of gloves might take three months. So, 250 million. That includes all the design. Im with nikolay, order of magnitude reduction. I want to get to the next lady in the center. Im curious when we look at the space suits they look like cloth. Im really amazed by the actual fabric layers. How many layers are in there to keep the vacuum out . The question is when you look at a space suit it looks like cloth. The question is how many layers. T i want to put a plug in for everyone, come on july 16th. You will see Neil Armstrong<\/a>s suit that has been digitized, preserved, and weve got a new hightech case. And we will have available images of the xrays that we have done on the suit and youll be able to see what a magnificent machine it is. It is not work clothes. Thats my own personal plug. But if you can go on and talk about layers. Yeah. And composition. Ill take it first. So, 14. Depending on how you count. So, first you get your astronaut long underwear. Then tag on tubing to heat up or control down. So, bladder. Abladder layer and second bladder layer, liner, add those up, five layers of fancy alum niezed mylar, then the thermal layers. Thats the micromedia layer. Thats many, many multiple layers. Its probably 21 in the apollo suit. 14 to 21, but were going to make it a lot less in the future so you can be more mobile. Did you have a comment . The gentleman in the blue shirt. You mentioned there were zippers to get in and out of the apollo suits. Did you worry about dirt interfering with the seal . Yes. I dont know if you all heard that. Yeah, if you want to repeat that. There were zippers in the apollo suit. There was a double pressure zipper. The question was did we worry about dirt getting into the seal. Well, there were a number of concerns with the zippers. Number one, after apollo was over we all decided no more zippers in suits. The zippers worked if you flex them enough. In training suits they failed. We replaced i think i have it im doing a book called lunar outfitters and ive got a publisher. Im plugging my book and its not out yet. But in there i talk about neils suit and i think in his suit i think three times replaced the zipper before his prime suit before it even flew. But the zippers were failure mode. They worked fine on the missions. To your point there was always concern about dirt getting in and clogging it up. It did, in the later missions like apollo 17 they did three vas and constantly opening and closing zippers. That lunar dust because an issue. We have to engineer a suit better so not only the zippers but the disconnected stay clean somehow. The young lady in the blue shirt. So, about the space suits for mars, i was wondering what the timer screens would be and why those would be in place . How long could they be in time . You talked about the radiation. The question was about the space suits for mars and what sort of time restraints would they have on them for eva use. Good question. First its about a 3 1 2 year mission to mars. It takes about 8 months to get there and a year and a half to get home. We need to be on the surface 500 or 600 days. Typically 8 hours. I like the notion of thinking about four hours in the morning, coming in, eat lunch, and four hours. Its going to be humans on the rovers and all of our equipment. Dont have much on mars today. But a long again a long work day. Theyre going to have to work for many, many repetitions. The First Mars Mission<\/a> was say four people is going to be over a thousand eva space walks. In history, weve done just over 550 space walks to date. So, well break that on the First Mars Mission<\/a>. So, i would love to add come conus about martian spacesuit design. There is real care for engineers and designers. So, gravity, atmosphere, low density but it has atmosphere, and some life support system devices will not work in that. And the most critical issue for the space suit, so nasa space suits weigh 350 pounds. So, we have to consider much less weight. So, space suit is the most critical issue. Yes . Theres a young lady all the way up top with the long hair. Yes. You. So, i was just wondering when in modern day space suits designs do they account for when theyre testing differences between male and female bodies . If so, with had did they start considering that . The question was when did they start making accounting for gender diversity in making space suits, in manufacturing space suits . Well, ill just say that in our current e. M. U. , our current suit, we looked at the hard upper torso shell. Theres a limiting factor in a lot of cases. It has the side bearings, the openings up top can restrict your reach out front. So, we have a medium, large, and extra large hard upper torso. We found the smaller female astronauts, we couldnt size them properly in the suit. I think the next generation suit we have to look at that. I know these folks down here have comments on that too, what were looking at in their designs, but you have to accommodate for that. I think one of the tougher areas to design suit is the shoulder assembly. If you think about the way the body moves, its flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, rotation. All these things have to happen and the upper torso takes a beating in that. You have to design that and have the mobility and sizing across the shoulders. Everyone should get their own suit. We have the technology. Everyone should get a custom suit. Again, thats my take on it. Everyone gets a cuss ton suit because youll perform much better in it so it needs to fit you. Yes . We kind of talked about the research and development behind suit ports, i know it has trl of around 7. I was curious what do you feel still needs to be done on those type of suits . The question was about the z series of suits that theyre working down at nasa jsc. You lost me with the trl. But what needs to be done with that suit further if had terms of testing and refinement before it can be used . Yes. I can probably take that one. And the question was about suit ports. So, thats kind of a different concept, an interesting concept. So, imagine if you got into your suit and but again through a big back hatch. Imagine a big back hatch. You get in, easy to dress, then close that up. You can take the suits and hang them off the rover. It has advantages that the suits go with the rover together. So, thats although the disadvantage is its very massive, its very heavy. So, theres pros and cons to whats known as a suit port since we havent talked too much, but when you get into space suit thats low pressure. Its a third of an atmosphere and you have to make sure you dont decompress or bet the benz. This goes in with the pressurization of a suit. If you jump in through a suit port, the gentleman mentioned a Technology Readiness<\/a> level of 7 which is pretty highly it means we have a lot of technology. We have suit ports. Were kind of ready to go. Its been researched. T its been developed. Its not really baselined in any mission i know of now and probably because you pay a mass penalty. Interesting engineering solution. Theres a gentleman all the way up in the last row or next to last row. Yes. Scott kelly described in one of his ebas that he wore a helmet where his eye glass lenses were ground into the surface of the helmet. Is that an unusual thing . He said it didnt work. Is that done on a regular basis . The question was about scott kellys experience, and he said that his eye glasses prescription were ground into the helmet. Is that normal . Was that a onetime i would have to say im not familiar with that . I have never heard of that. I didnt know. That would be a lot of work to try to a helmet customized for an astronaut. They do wear glasses. They wear corrective lens. Thats all im aware of. You could be right. I dont know. Weve got time for one or two more questions. The gentleman in the red shirt. I have a question for ryan. In all the research youve done to recreate with accuracy, what did you come across that you were surprised by and said why did they do it this way . The question was for ryan about all the research hes done to recreate the suits. Did he come up to any point where he was just puzzled by why the engineers made it this way in one particular way . Usually its the opposite. I would wonder why just looking at something why it was done that way but in the process of recreating that, i would i would understand. Its kind of interesting because youre retracing the steps of what the engineers did. And i dont think theres even a lot of record of these things. I noticed on the between the a7l and a7lb theres a diverter knob that controls the amount of air they would pump into the suits. And on the b suits the cut outs were much deeper. Something i always noticed looking in museums. Then i realized with gloved hands you can turn that better. At some point some astronaut may have been like i cant reach this knob. I have to stop and look at the detail. Its over my head. Goi my god, youre looking at that kind of detail. It begs a question of me too why we did that. So, its the design is interesting. One last question im going to have to give it to a ringer. Valerie. I wanted to ask ryan, with all his research and experience on the suits if he has a vision of what the next generation of suit might be like. Another question for ryan. With all of his research, does he have his own vision of what the next suit should look like . When you were mentioning aesthetics i dont make real space suits. I make costumes. Thats all i deal with. I noticed one thing with space suit design, the first suits are designed in the way they think they should be like with science fiction. The x15 suit and the mercury suit, they were silver. And they didnt have to be silver, but i think the legend is that Scott Crossfield<\/a> saw that silver fabric on a table at the David Clark Company<\/a> and said that looks really cool. For pr, that should be what a suit should look like. But over the course of gemini and apollo, they said this is silly. We dont need that. I noticed too with the martian, the suit looks a lot like david newmans suit. The first thing is what they think they should be. I know itll evolve into what functionally it needs to be. So, thats kind of the exciting thing i think is just seeing what naturally develops. I dont know. Thank you. I would just like to thank our panelists for an alltooshort program. People who knew me, we could be here for hours. But unfortunately the house says we cannot. But please join me in thanking our guests. [ applause ] all week were featuring American History<\/a> tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. The lectures in history, american artifacts, real america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency, and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History<\/a> tv now and every weekend on cspan 3. Weeknights this month, we feature American History<\/a> tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. This week we show case our weekly lectures in history series taking you into College Classrooms<\/a> around the country. Tonight, a look at world war ii and how american cartoons influenced the war effort. Watch American History<\/a> tv tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and every weekend on cspan3. Labor day weekend on American History<\/a> tv. Saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on lectures in history, a discussion about Abraham Lincoln<\/a> and native americans. Sunday, at 4 00 p. M. , on real america, the 1950 army film invasion of southern france. And monday, labor day, at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of virginias first General Assembly<\/a> held at james town. Explore our nations past on American History<\/a> tv every weekend on cspan3. In the late 1850s, americans generally trusted their congressman, but they did not trust congress as an institution, nor did congressmen trust each other. By 1860 many congressmen were routinely armed out of fear their opponents might kill them. Yale history professor and author Joanne Freeman<\/a> will be our guest on sunday. Her latest book is the field of blood. Her other titles are the essential hamilton and affairs of riding. Then at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on afterwards in his latest book the immoral majority ben howe. I think the lesser argument is tempting but dangerous. I think it contributes to keeping a system in place that takes accountability out of the system. And i think it alsoal is an easy way to bring in Something Like<\/a> evangelicalism or any other faith and then use that as a way to get votes which seems like about the worse possible way you could use faith. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan2. Up next, a discussion about geoscience and how lunar samples from the missions helped us understand the moon and solar system. The National Archives<\/a> and","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia601009.us.archive.org\/31\/items\/CSPAN3_20190828_142400_Apollo_Spacesuits\/CSPAN3_20190828_142400_Apollo_Spacesuits.thumbs\/CSPAN3_20190828_142400_Apollo_Spacesuits_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}