Maybe NASA should build space pods as seen in Kubrick’s movie, then the astronauts would even be able to scratch their nose.
Oddly enough, I thought of a space helmet nose scratcher the other day, based on the magnet pairs used to clean the inside of home aquariums.
Wrap two supermagnets in a soft material that won’t scratch the plastic faceplate, with a nice handle on one (which goes on the outside of the faceplate) and put a nose scratcher on the inside magnet. Stick them on the faceplate and slide them to the side, for use when needed.
I’d also just thought of taking an unpressurized, uninflated, pressure-tight bag, adding an inward flowing one-way valve from a sports drink bottle, and designing it to quickly mate with a port on the helmet located just below the faceplate, with an automatic valve arrangement. In the event you need to vacuum out the helmet, just pull the empty bag out of a pocket or pouch and jam it into the helmet. Any liquids will get sucked into the bag as it inflates to suit pressure, and the one-way sports drink valve will keep the liquids from flowing back out of the bag. Then detach the bag, which would be filled with suit air and the liquids. Since they’d be quite small prior to use, an astronaut could carry a couple of them.
Space suits have had rudimentary nose scratchers since Apollo:
It seems to me that the big problem here is the excessive complexity of NASA suits, which is characteristic of immature technology. The reason why the astronaut nearly drowned is that water is needed to cool the wearer, which is in turn caused by the suit being highly insulating – and in turn that is partly caused by the multiple layers.
Human bodies are quite good at keeping themselves at a reasonable temperature. One way of exploiting that fact might be the oft-discussed concept of the skinsuit, which applies the pressure needed to keep the astronaut from exploding by elastic tension rather than applying gas pressure. In such a suit, cooling would be handled simply by sweating. The astronaut would have to drink more than currently, but that could be handled. If insulation from external high or low temperature was required, a reflective layer on the outside (or even a reflective poncho!) would handle that. Of course, outer garments would still be required for micrometeorite protection.
So NASA is waterboarding people?
Maybe NASA should build space pods as seen in Kubrick’s movie, then the astronauts would even be able to scratch their nose.
Oddly enough, I thought of a space helmet nose scratcher the other day, based on the magnet pairs used to clean the inside of home aquariums.
Wrap two supermagnets in a soft material that won’t scratch the plastic faceplate, with a nice handle on one (which goes on the outside of the faceplate) and put a nose scratcher on the inside magnet. Stick them on the faceplate and slide them to the side, for use when needed.
I’d also just thought of taking an unpressurized, uninflated, pressure-tight bag, adding an inward flowing one-way valve from a sports drink bottle, and designing it to quickly mate with a port on the helmet located just below the faceplate, with an automatic valve arrangement. In the event you need to vacuum out the helmet, just pull the empty bag out of a pocket or pouch and jam it into the helmet. Any liquids will get sucked into the bag as it inflates to suit pressure, and the one-way sports drink valve will keep the liquids from flowing back out of the bag. Then detach the bag, which would be filled with suit air and the liquids. Since they’d be quite small prior to use, an astronaut could carry a couple of them.
Space suits have had rudimentary nose scratchers since Apollo:
http://www.universetoday.com/38599/astronaut-helmet/
It seems to me that the big problem here is the excessive complexity of NASA suits, which is characteristic of immature technology. The reason why the astronaut nearly drowned is that water is needed to cool the wearer, which is in turn caused by the suit being highly insulating – and in turn that is partly caused by the multiple layers.
Human bodies are quite good at keeping themselves at a reasonable temperature. One way of exploiting that fact might be the oft-discussed concept of the skinsuit, which applies the pressure needed to keep the astronaut from exploding by elastic tension rather than applying gas pressure. In such a suit, cooling would be handled simply by sweating. The astronaut would have to drink more than currently, but that could be handled. If insulation from external high or low temperature was required, a reflective layer on the outside (or even a reflective poncho!) would handle that. Of course, outer garments would still be required for micrometeorite protection.