SPACEFLIGHT Space suit design

Have space suit – will travel​

As the second Space Age race moves towards placing professional, citizen astronauts and space tourists in orbit, DR CAMERON M SMITH of space suit start-up Pacific Spaceflight, considers the emerging requirements and future commercial market for space suits.

As the second Space Age, characterised by reducing the cost of space access, flourishes, more people will be going to space. Each of them will require at least one space suit and at a price that encourages rather than discourages space activity. Such cost reduction has been the focus of my research group, Pacific Spaceflight, since 2009. Recently, as thousands of people came to see and touch some of our space suits at the Paris Air Show, I had a chance to think over the future of space suits in general. And as I go forward in to the commercial space industry, I have three main observations.

First, the number of space suits designed, built, tested, and routinely used will increase radically in the coming decades. This will result in a variety of space suit fabrication companies, with competition between them increasing space suit reliability and reducing cost. Second, as more activities are carried out beyond Earth, a wide variety of space suit types will be needed. Finally, it is clear that space suit usability and reliability will have to come on par with that of comparable technology which we all take for granted today, for example, cars and aircraft.

The ultimate goal of space settlement will not work out if, each time we want to go outside, we have to plan it like a modern ISS spacewalk, using sensitive, expensive, exotic space suits, meticulous planning and live oversight by a team of technicians down on Earth. We need the ‘farm pickup truck’ of space suits, so that going outside will be as routine as taking a ramble down a country road. We are far from that now but the only way to get there is to start. And we have started.

More space suits = better and cheaper space suits

Currently, only a handful of companies make space suits. The technologies of space suit design, fabrication, testing, delivery and training are highly exotic, specialised and treated like the secrets of rarefied guilds. This will all change as more space suits are needed. The older companies will probably continue to enjoy their decades-old relationships with federal space agencies but there will be demand for many and varied space suits for the commercial space industry. Note that for each person trained to go to space and use a space suit, there will be the need for at least one training space suit.

To supply this emerging demand, space suit companies will appear. It is unlikely that they will result from personnel from the older companies splitting off to form new companies, as those employees are more likely under very strict non-compete contracts. Whatever the case, these companies will supply large numbers of space suits. Just as natural selection favours the best-fit of a diversity of forms of living things, the process of ‘technological selection’ will weed out poorer ideas, resulting in better designs in terms of function and reliability.

What counts as ‘better’ in terms of function? ​

Currently, it is relatively easy to maintain suit pressure, dump or scrub exhaled CO2 2 and regulate temperature – the essential space suit functions. The real challenge is mobility of the suit when pressurised. Many visitors to our lab are shocked to discover the rigidity of a fully-pressurised space suit – it is something like wearing armour. It is entirely possible to get accustomed to wearing pressurised suits for hours at a time but it takes dedicated training.

IT IS CLEAR THAT SPACE SUIT USABILITY AND RELIABILITY WILL HAVE TO COME ON PAR WITH THAT OF COMPARABLE TECHNOLOGY WHICH WE ALL TAKE FOR GRANTED TODAY, FOR EXAMPLE, CARS AND AIRCRAFT 

We must do better to have ‘everyday wear’ space suits. Dozens of approaches to increasing mobility when pressurised have been invented and tested. Not all of the best designs, however, have ‘made it’ through federal space agency bureaucracies to space. Some worthy designs that will improve mobility are sure to be resurrected in the coming decades. These include the use of skin-tight ‘mechanical’ compression suits (which make people look so great in the movies but remain in development), suits aided by exoskeleton technology and the use of modern materials such as composites to build uniquely-mobile joints. The ‘best’ space suit, I feel, will be the one that you do not notice any more than your regular daily clothing, that is, giving the body near-natural range of mobility. This is the Holy Grail of space suit design and we are pursuing it with vigour. I imagine others are as well.

Other advances in space suit technologies will result from the use of advanced materials. Currently and foreseeably, space suits incorporate a variety of textiles and hard materials including metal for fittings and polycarbonate for transparent elements such as visors. Keeping up with advances in textiles alone is challenging and any fledgling space suit company will be well-advised to systematically test a wide variety of materials. New materials likely to be used in forthcoming space suits include aerogel (as insulation), hydrogenated boron nitride nanotube textiles for protection from galactic cosmic radiation, and ‘buckypaper’ an ultralightweight and tremendously puncture-resistant textile.

Whatever suit designs are evolved, competition for customers are likely to drive prices down radically. Currently, IVA suits (used inside spacecraft simply for trips to and from LEO) cost in the order of $50,000-$100,000. They also weigh about 15lb, costing $60,000-$150,000 just to get to LEO (at SpaceX’s and NASA current per-pound cost-to-LEO, respectively). My goal has been a $1,000 IVA suit weighing just 3kg. I currently have the materials cost and weight parameters in this range but fabrication cost remains in the low tens of thousands of dollars. These costs will come down as ingenuity is used to keep up with competition. 

More activities in space = a diversity of space suits

Construction suits

The most likely developmental pathway for the second Space Age is the development of LEO infrastructure to service increasing space tourism and space-based commerce. This infrastructure will include ‘construction stations’ for storing construction materials and housing workers, something like remote oil rigs. These will be used to build space hotels for orbital tourists and fabrication and research facilities for commercial entities.

Even with some self-assembly and robotic assembly, this infrastructure will be built largely by (and then maintained by) legions of space construction workers. They will need space construction suits that can be used hundreds or thousands of times, rather than retired from use (for maintenance) after a few years or as few as 25 uses, as are the current NASA EMU and Russian Orlan suits.

These suits will have to offer enough comfort to be used for long hours and they will have to be easily maintained by non-specialised personnel. However, just as having ships necessitates having dry docks, there will be work for suit technicians in orbit to keep a given company’s fleet of construction suits running well. I suspect this work, just like that of a helicopter mechanic, will be well-paid and highly-regarded.

Space construction suits will differ from current space station EVA suits in being more heavily built, perhaps with more protection for the visor, and will involve many specialised tools requiring excellent glove dexterity and/or glove-replacing tool ‘hands’ as seen on current underwater construction suits. One such space industry suit is already underway as my company is currently building a training Space Construction Suit for Opifex, a Texas company focused on training ‘spacejacks’, space construction workers much like commercial divers.

Space tourism suits

It appears that Blue Origin’s New Shepard vehicle, and Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo are both designed with pressurised cabins such that no space suit is needed. If there is a crew cabin pressure leak, it will have to be quickly overcome with increased gas flow into the cabin while emergency procedures are initiated. Of course, a very rapid pressure loss could kill the crew in seconds, or make them unconscious in seconds, leading to suffocation shortly thereafter. For these reasons I suggest that at least the flight crew on such flights wear IVA suits, just as commercial airline passengers today have some recourse with a simple oxygen mask in case of cabin depressurisation.

The pilot and co-pilot are equipped with superior masks and are meant to use them while taking the aircraft down to a safe altitude of approximately 10,000ft. Why do Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic opt-out of space suits for their tourists? I suspect these companies perceive space suits to be expensive, heavy (leading to higher launch costs for their customers) and complex.

As mentioned, I feel a new generation of very light, comfortable and simple-to-use IVA suits is just around the corner (a 3kg or 6lb IVA suit, at SpaceX’s current cost-to-LEO, would add $24,000 to get to space, a smallish sum for someone paying a $250,000 for a suborbital hop … and who wouldn’t want their own space suit as a souvenir of the flight?). This may be changing: apparently Under Armour has been contracted to build some kind of garment for Virgin Galactic right here in Portland, Oregon – It is currently unclear whether these will be pressurised suits or simple flight coveralls.

Many space tourists will be adventurous people who will eventually want to go outside of their spacecraft. This will require EVA suits for everyone or at least non-federally-trained astronauts. I envision them being used for such varied activities as skydives from the ‘edge of space’, LEO sports, including, for example, 0g races, and even the exploration of the Moon, asteroids and Mars in the manner of modern mountaineers. Such space suits will be highly tailored for their various functions. The variety will be fantastically interesting as people decide just what it is they want to do in space.

Space suits for the entire family!

The ultimate goal of the increased access to space, for many, is not just commerce or recreation for the wealthy but permanent settlement beyond our home planet. This prospect has many justifications, from vague concepts of ‘human progress’ to more specific ideas of ‘civilisation insurance’ in the case of an Earth catastrophe. Whatever the justification, space settlement means lots of space suits.

Whether orbital colonies, Lagrangian-point settlements or Mars cities, lots of people will be required to build these habitats and maintain them of course. People of all walks of life will want to experience life beyond the habitat.

Steven Hawking was so excited about the properties of the universe beyond Earth that he arranged to have a little taste of it by taking flights on the Vomit Comet. In the same way, people of whatever disability will be accommodated by customised space suits for whatever environment. The principles of suit construction are simple enough and so much can be done with simple textiles that can be contoured to any human body, that there is no reason not to accommodate anyone wanting to experience space.

Space settlement means people of all ages. Many people take their kids camping and hiking. Is there any reason that parents would not take their children on a tour of the surface of Mars, or freely floating above the Earth? I do not think so.

The danger need not be any more than taking kids on a busy highway in a car, which people do every day without a thought. Once space suit technology has been made extremely reliable (more on that below), taking children into space will be done with no more thought than people give when taking kids on aircraft or roller coasters. So we should also anticipate space suits for the young and indeed for the elderly.

Suits for the young, in particular, will have to be highly size-adjustable for the rapid growth period leading to adult size stability some time after puberty. Space settlement is not about rockets and robots – those are just tools. Space settlement is about normal families living out normal lives beyond our home planet and that means lots of space suits … as varied as our clothing today.

Space style

This brings up style and personal expression with clothing. Every culture has traditionally had a style of ‘ethnic dress’ and there is no need for future space suits to continue to be entirely utilitarian in their outer appearance. Recently we collaborated with New York-based fashion designer Kate Walz and her Querencia Studio to begin to show space suits used with cultural aesthetics in mind.

We provided Kate with a plain, white, completely-functional IVA suit, to which she applied her own surface modifications, beautifying the garment with a sort of flowing cape. Don’t worry about the safety issues just now, focus on the idea that space suits should of course be customisable, just as people customise what they wear every single day of their lives.

In the same way, I have commissioned my brother, an artist living in Europe, to design a variety of space suit colourways, he also provided a wide variety of styles – ‘from mild to wild’ he told me – many of which employ his abstracted graphics, which have been used in modern swimwear. We are currently building an IVA suit that will take one of Julian’s paint schemes, an exciting project to get people thinking about the possibilities of space suit beyond the usual technology/industry connotations of the past half-century.

I cannot emphasise enough that this is the ultimate goal; personal expression in use of some beautiful technology to expand humanity’s experiences of the universe.

Increased space suit usability and reliability​

Currently, US Air Force pressure garments (used in high altitude flight, but functionally the same as IVA space suits) are cared for by teams of technicians. While there will always be a need for such workers, future space suits will have to be made even less precious, more reliable and easier to use than anything available today.

My approach to improving these features is not to increase suit complexity, but rather to make the garments simpler.

What is the minimum number of parts required for a functional suit? Can a cheaper material be used for a given component, rather than a more expensive one that has been used for decades simply because of unexamined tradition? What can we simplify that is unnecessarily complex? These are significant questions as we move into the second generation of space suits, which will eventually be as durable and reliable as some of the most common transportation on Earth – the private car.

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