Saturday, May 28, 2011

The Spacesuit

Only a hundred people have used it but if the future of humanity passes trough the conquest of space and the colonization of other planets, maybe someday the spacesuit become part of our wardrobe.
The first spacesuits

Russians designed and used two different spacesuits in the 60's: one of the Vostok spacecraft and another of the Vosjod spacecraft. The first was orange to easily locate astronauts and the second was for space walks.
Americans used other two spacesuits, one for Mercury missions and the other for the spacecraft.
The first man who wore a spacesuit was Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961.
The first woman who travelled to space was Valentina Tereshkova on 16 June 1963.
On 21 July 1969 Neil Armstrong stepped the moon. He wore the NASA's spacesuit for moon space walks.

The dangers of outer space

The outer space is a place inhospitable for life. Temperatures are lower of -120ºC in the shade but in the sun are of 150ºC. There is no oxygen to breathe, radiation is very intense and micrometeorites cause sandstorms. But the greatest danger is the lack of pressure.
Spacesuits protect all these problems but are very uncomfortable.

Life in the space

Inside the spacecraft the environment is good, the temperature is between 17ºC and 25ºC so the astronaut wear casual clothes. They only use the spacesuit for the "extravehicular activities" not to cause any accident.

Parts of a spacesuit



1 comment: