Strange Space Suits from the 1930's

The american and british governments began work on space suit desighn back in the 1930's.

Here are a few of the more unusual ones.






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B. F. Goodrich made a full pressure suit for pioneering aviator Wiley Post. It was of double ply rubberized parachute fabric, with pigskin gloves, rubber boots, and aluminium helmet, pressurized to 0.5 bar. The pressure suit used a liquid oxygen source and had arm and leg joints that permitted easy operation of the flight controls and also enabled walking to and from the aircraft. In his Lockheed Vega, the "Winnie May", Post set unofficial altitude records (as high as 15 km), discovering the jet stream in the process. In March 1935, Post flew from Burbank California to Cleveland Ohio in the stratosphere using the jet stream. At times, his ground speed exceeded 550 kph in a 290 kph aircraft. Post's pioneering accomplishments were the first major practical advance in pressurised flight. Ten flights were made in the suit before Post's death in 1935.





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A favourite of Life magazine in the 1960's, this Grumman / Space General design for extended lunar surface operations allowed the astronaut to withdraw his arms from the flexible manipulators and work within the pressurised 'cabin' of the can enclosing his upper torso and head.





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As England continued its work with derivatives of the Ridge-Haldane-Davis suit, in the United States the US Army finally recognized, albeit somewhat belatedly, the potential importance of a fully pressurized protective garment for military aviators and started a classified research program in 1939, designated Project MX-117. Soon several US companies had been drawn into pressure suit developmental investigations; these included the B.F.Goodrich Company (Russell Colley's engineering group), Bell Aircraft Company, the Goodyear Rubber Company, the US Rubber Company, and the National Carbon Company. From 1940 through 1943 a number of original designs were produced. Generally speaking, they uniformly featured transparent dome-like plastic helmets and airtight rubberized fabric garments which markedly restricted mobility and range of motion when fully pressurized. A major breakthrough came in the development of segmented, bellows-like joints at the knees, hips and elbows, which improved use of the limbs. This striking visual aspect of the early 40s suits resulted in their being termed "Tomato worm suits," after the distinctive convolutions of the Tomato Hornworm's body which had inspired the idea

http://www.astronautix.com/

How cool are those?!

Great pictures, quaneeri. Love the guy in the goldfish bowl. Straight from 1950's B-movies!

@Cufflink!

I think you are right, B-movie all the way! I think the last two may actually have ended up on Hammer Pictures back lot. The first one looks like something from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Great stuff, quaneeri!


(I think I had a toy Space Ranger, looked just like that last one )

When I saw this one, I could not stop laughing!

http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/t/tgrummst.jpg

Thanks.


Yeah, i thought those suits were exellent B-grade wardrobe.





Here are a few more:



http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/t/trepubst.jpg

This was a Republic Aviation design for a hard space suit for extended operations on the lunar surface. It was very popular in Life magazine in the 1960's -- and coincidentally resembled a suit from a Republic Pictures serials of the 1940's. (Republic Moon Suit)





http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/l/litton58.jpg

The USAF Mark I Extravehicular and Lunar Surface Suit, designed and built by Litton Industries, predated both the launch of Sputnik I by the Soviet Union and the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) by the United States. Based on a Litton "constant-volume" concept for a so-called "hard suit" in early 1955, the Mark I was tested during 1958-59 for more than 600 hours at simulated altitudes exceeding 100 miles. The unique construction of this suit permitted almost a full range of body motions by the person wearing it. The great success of the Mark I led to the subsequent development of a more refined and satisfactory RX-series "Moon Suits" for NASA. On June 9, 1958 Captain Iven C. Kincheloe Jr., USAF test pilot, tested the Mark I in a simulated flight to 100 miles and found it completely satisfactory.



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Marquardt developed a sled design in the mid-1960’s for maneuvering in the vicinity of a spacecraft. The space sled approach was dropped in preference to the shuttle manned maneuvering unit. (Space Sled)



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For the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) space station, the U.S. Air Force recognized that existing launch/re-entry and Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) type suits had limited EVA ability. In 1967-68, the USAF competed an exclusively EVA suit-system development contract. Hamilton Standard won the competition. The Integrated Maneuvering Life Support System (IMLSS) design was the result. IMLSS could operate on an umbilical from MOL or disconnect and fly independently from the station. The MOL program was cancelled in 1969 before the prototype gained its thermal outer covers. IMLSS packaging and integration experience greatly influenced what is now Hamilton Sundstrand in the design of the Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit that still serves NASA today.






More Suits Here:

http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/spasuits.htm

Great stuff.

And that second one's from Doctor Who, I'd swear it.

Cufflink


I love these old space suits.

It taks me back to when i was a kid, and used to watch The Outer Limits on TV.

Some pretty bizarre looking space suits there.

SaRuMaN

Thanks.




Yeah i guess to us now they do look pretty bizare.


These guys were among a team of space pioneers, who eventually sent men to the moon.