Spacesuit: A History through Fact and Fiction

By Brett Gooden

Recipient of the American Astronautical Society's 2012 Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award


The space suit is an icon of space flight. It is the very symbol of interplanetary exploration – of pioneering adventure, of excitement and danger, and of man’s quest to learn more of other worlds.

This book follows the remarkable history of the space suit through science fiction and fact. With an absorbing blend of drama and detail, Brett Gooden explains how this seemingly impossible dream gradually evolved into the complex suits of today and how the quest continues for the ‘Mars and Beyond’ suits of tomorrow.

Man has dreamt of flying into space and walking on other planets for hundreds of years. But the risks to the human body involved in making this a reality only were only first recognized when, in the 1800s, an adventurous few climbed high mountains and took the first tentative steps into the sky under hydrogen filled balloons.

Gradually it became clear that to leave the earth’s atmosphere and gravity, our frail bodies would need protection from many dangers. Jules Verne, in his epic novel Around the Moon in 1872, recognized this need and was one of the first to suggest that some form of suit, similar to that used by deep sea divers, might allow his space voyagers to venture safely into the vacuum outside their spaceship.

In the period between the World Wars, daring pilots, competing with each other, ventured higher and higher into the thinner atmosphere. They challenged the physiologists and engineers to provide them with special suits to achieve this goal.

At the same time, cheap pulp fiction magazines pumped out colorful adventures of humans in space. Their eye-catching cover illustrations became the archetypical feature of these ‘pulps’ and allowed artists to give vent to their wildest fantasy. Nevertheless, their inventive dreams for space suits fed back to the scientific community. Fiction influenced fact.

Complemented by astonishing and detailed illustrations, this book unlocks the seemingly impenetrable secrets of how the space suit was made into a practical and essential device. How simple everyday items such as the car tire, the caterpillar and the concertina provided critical clues that eventually brought the space suit to reality.

This is the fascinating, extraordinary and often bizarre story of the Space suit – through Fact and Fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tattered Flag
• Release date: Dec 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9780957689206

Brett Gooden

From the age of eight, when he insisted that his mother take him to see the seminal science fiction film Destination Moon, Brett Gooden has had a fascination for the fact and fiction of human spaceflight. In 1961 he joined the British Interplanetary Society (UK) and was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1973. In 1967 he became a member of the Space Medicine Branch of the Aerospace Medical Association (USA). He obtained his MB, BS (1967) and MD (1972) degrees from the University of Adelaide, and PhD (1978) from the University of Nottingham (UK). He was elected to membership of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society (USA) in 1973 and the Physiological Society (UK) in 1975. His scientific research in Australia, USA and UK has dealt largely with aerospace and diving medicine. He authored one of the earliest reviews of the physiological responses of man in orbit in Spaceflight 1964. His books include Diving and Asphyxia: a comparative study of animals and man (Cambridge University Press, 1983, reprinted 2009), Spaceport Australia (Kangaroo Press, 1990), Echidna: extraordinary egg-laying mammal (CSIRO Publishing, 2006) and Projekt Natter – Last of the Wonder Weapons: The Luftwaffe’s vertical take-off rocket interceptor (Chevron Publishing Limited, 2006). He lives in Australia.

Book preview

Photograph by Michal Kluvanek

The Author

From the age of eight, when he insisted that his mother take him to see the seminal science fiction film Destination Moon, Brett Gooden has had a fascination for the fact and fiction of human space flight. In 1961 he joined the British Interplanetary Society (UK) and was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1973. In 1967 he became a member of the Space Medicine Branch of the Aerospace Medical Association (USA). He obtained his MB, BS (1967) and MD (1972) degrees from the University of Adelaide, and PhD (1978) from the University of Nottingham (UK). He was elected to membership of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society (USA) in 1973 and the Physiological Society (UK) in 1975. His scientific research in Australia, USA and UK has dealt largely with aerospace and diving medicine. He authored one of the earliest reviews of the physiological responses of man in orbit in Spaceflight in 1964. His books include Diving and Asphyxia: A Comparative Study of Animals and Man (Cambridge University Press, 1983, reprinted 2009), Spaceport Australia (Kangaroo Press, 1990), Echidna: Extraordinary Egg-laying Mammal (CSIRO Publishing, 2006) and Projekt Natter: Last of the Wonder Weapons. The Luftwaffe’s Vertical Take-Off Rocket Interceptor (Ian Allan Publishing Limited, 2006).

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Robert Palmer, aerospace engineer, retired, formerly of The Aerospace Corporation, for his tireless support with the technical aspects of this book. Despite my plethora of questions on a multitude of subjects over many years, he remained steadfast in his desire to assist me. I hasten to add that any inadequacy that the reader may find with scientific topics in this book remains entirely my responsibility.

I thank my family for their support.

I am very much in debt to Robert Forsyth of Tattered Flag Press and Chevron Publishing and Mark Nelson for their unwavering assistance in making this book possible. An author could not ask for a more dedicated editor and creative team. I would also like to thank Tim Brown for his work on the graphics in this book.

Brett Gooden, MD, PhD, FBIS

Adelaide, South Australia

December 2012

Photograph and illustration credits

Individual credits appear with the relevant photographs and illustrations within the body of this work. Every effort has been made to trace the present copyright holders of photographic and illustrative material contained in this book. Our sincere apology is made for any unintentional omission which we would be pleased to correct in any future edition of this book.

Text reference numbers

As you read this book you will note that small numbers appear from time to time in the text in brackets. These numbers are the key to discovering the source of the information just discussed and sometimes to more detailed information on the subject. You will find these numbers listed at the back of the book under Chapter Notes. Look for the chapter concerned and you will find the reference numbers listed in numerical order that show the reference source. Enjoy your research.

Published in Great Britain in 2012 by

Tattered Flag Press

PO Box 2240

Pulborough

West Sussex RH20 9AL

England

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www.thetatteredflag.com

Tattered Flag Press is an imprint of Chevron Publishing Ltd

Spacesuit

© Brett Gooden 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

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Jacket Design: Tim Brown/Mark Nelson

Illustration © Tim Brown 2012

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ISBN 978-0-9543115-4-4

EPUB ISBN: 978-0-9576892-0-6

Design by Mark Nelson, Sydney, Australia

Printed and bound in China

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Contents

I N T R O D U C T I O N

ICON OF SPACE FLIGHT

THE spacesuit is an icon of space flight. It is the very symbol of interplanetary exploration – of pioneering adventure, of excitement and danger, and of man’s quest to learn more of other worlds.

Spacesuit. What images does this word conjure in our imagination? We might visualise dramatic scenes of astronauts working on giant satellites or kicking up moon dust on the lunar surface. Or perhaps we might recall with nostalgia space heroes in science fiction films and magazines, like Dan Dare and his Space Fleet colleagues floating between their bullet-shaped spaceships. The spacesuits worn by astronauts today are a major technological milestone on a long and tortuous path that began in the 1930s with primitive garments developed for high-altitude record attempts by daring young aviators.

Three US astronauts working together on the huge satellite, Intelsat VI, in the payload bay of the Space Shuttle Endeavour in May 1992. Each astronaut is suited in an extravehicular mobility unit spacesuit. It took around 50 years of intensive development to reach this degree of sophistication in pressure suits. (NASA)

During the first half of the 20th century the spacesuit was generally believed to be a dream, a fantasy of science fiction. In cold, practical terms it seemed impossible that it could ever become a reality.(1) This was an era when science fiction and special effects artists could allow their imaginations to run riot on the covers of science fiction books, in magazines and films. This period fostered an exciting interaction between science fiction and science fact. Then, in the 1950s, came the Space Race and with it serious but incredibly ambitious plans to finally land a man on the Moon. The unbelievable dream might come true. Enormous pressure was placed on engineers and aviation physicians to produce real spacesuits that could be worn not only in space, but also on the lunar surface.

This book follows the remarkable history of the spacesuit through science fiction and fact. With an absorbing blend of clarity and detail, it explains how this seemingly impossible dream gradually evolved into the complex suits of today and how the quest continues for the ‘Mars and Beyond’ suits of tomorrow.

Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare and his faithful batman, Albert Fitzwilliam Digby (left), float out into space in their ‘space exploration suits’. Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future was created by the artistic genius, Frank Hampson, for this classic science fiction cartoon strip (29 April 1955). The suit first appeared in the revolutionary boys’ magazine Eagle in the 19 May 1950 issue. (Reproduced with the kind permission of the Dan Dare Corporation Limited)

G L O S S A R Y

A young surgeon and an army officer take their lives in their hands and make the first manned balloon flight from the Jardin de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne over Paris on 21 November 1783.

Chapter One

BALLOONS AND

SPACE DIVERS

Who needs a spacesuit anyway?

FOR the early writers of science fiction, the idea of a spacesuit simply did not arise. It was assumed that a breathable atmosphere extended all the way from the Earth to other worlds. This concept seems to have been based on the famous misconception of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle that ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’. But a major problem for this theory arose by the 16th century when it became clear that the planets, including the Earth, moved around the sun in elliptical paths. If there was an atmosphere between them, then they must be constantly ploughing through this dense gaseous medium. The enormous heat generated by the resulting friction should be disastrous for the planets, burning them to a crisp.(1) The only logical answer was that space was empty.

In 1609 the distinguished astronomer, Johannes Kepler, wrote an imaginative tale called Somnium. He understood that there could be multiple problems to be encountered by his imaginary space voyager, Duracotus, when travelling to the Moon. Increasing altitude, he noted, would bring with it bitter cold and lack of air to breathe. Although there was an increasing awareness amongst scientists such as Bishop John Wilkins (1614-1672) that the space traveller would face multiple physiological stresses, ignorance of the true nature of such stresses was revealed in his proposal that the thinness of the upper atmosphere could be counteracted by the use of a moistened sponge.(1)

The hypothesis that space was empty was soon given further credibility by experimentation. In 1648 on Mount Puy-de-Dôme, a dormant volcano near the ancient French city of Clermont-Ferrand, Florin Périer, the brother-in-law of Blaise Pascal after whom the measurement of pressure is named, found by the use of a simple mercury column barometer that the air pressure decreased as he took the barometer higher up the mountain.(2) This evidence suggested that the Earth’s atmosphere might have an upper boundary.(1)

Why you wouldn’t like to fly in my beautiful balloon

The clever observation by two wealthy paper manufacturers, the French brothers Joseph Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, that a small paper or silk bag placed above a fire floated upwards in the hot air led to their invention of the hot air balloon.(3) Subsequent experiments resulted, in 1783, in their construction of the first man-carrying balloon. On 15 October of that year a young surgeon and apothecary named Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier made a successful tethered flight.(4) Subsequently, together with an infantry officer in the French Royal Guard, François Laurent, marquis d’Arlandes, he undertook the first free flight in the Montgolfier hot air balloon on 21 November from the Jardin de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne. The balloon is reputed to have flown over Paris for 16 kilometres (10 miles) in 23 minutes reaching an altitude of around 900 metres (3,000 feet). The modification and improvement of the basic Montgolfier design and the demonstration shortly thereafter (1 December) by J.-A.-C. Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert that hydrogen gas could produce sustained buoyancy in a balloon with much less effort, opened the way for the exploration of the upper atmosphere.(3)

A 1610 portrait of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630). In 1609 he wrote an imaginative tale titled ‘Somnium’, which foretold the problems of his imaginary space voyager, Duracotus, on a voyage to the moon.

The fundamental importance of why we and other land animals have to breathe to stay alive was not fully understood until the late 18th century. In 1777 the renowned French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, reported that the air in a closed jar containing a living bird showed an increasing amount of a gas that was absorbed by soda lime, later called carbon dioxide, and a decreasing amount of a life-sustaining gas which he called oxygène but which we now call oxygen.(5) Tragically for science, this brilliant man died in the blood bath of the French Revolution.

Eventually, the need for human space travellers to be provided with a breathable atmosphere began to be expressed in fanciful tales of science fiction. In the first half of the 19th century, the renowned American poet and author, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote a story entitled The Unparalleled Adventures of one Hans Pfaall (1835), later republished as Lunar Discoveries – Extraordinary Aerial Voyage by Baron Hans Pfaall, in which he described the travels of the Baron to the Moon in a homemade balloon. In this tale Poe mentioned ‘…an apparatus for the condensation of the atmospheric air’, which allowed his space traveller to breathe as he passed through what the author assumed would be the rarefied atmosphere between the Earth and the Moon.(6) In 1869 the American clergyman Edward Hale authored The Brick Moon and presented the original idea of a manned Earth satellite, 61 metres (200 feet) in diameter, made of bricks and circling 6436 kilometres (4,000 miles) high. The bricks would melt as a result of atmospheric friction, producing a porcelain-like covering which would keep the satellite airtight. Hale’s idea was incredibly advanced. Ceramic