Jeff Feige
Orbital Outfitters
- Clients include XCOR, SpaceX and NASA
- Primarily produce spacesuits
- Lately been involved in developing vehicle mockups
- Spacsuits are not stand-alone off-the-rack but are integrated subsystem of the vehicle — need to be integrated with environmental and life support systems, seats, doors, etc.
- Many questions to consider in developing suits
- How much mobility?
- What are realistic emergency scenarios
- Would occupants have to bail out?
- What are you protecting the wearer from other than pressure loss? Fire? Chemicals? Thermal?
- Doesn’t agree with the we don’t need a suit, my vehicle is robust
- Of course it’s a robust vehicle
- “Well…shit happens”
- Spacesuit is a last line of defense
- Several examples of incidents in spaceflight without spacesuits
- Soyuz 11 — crew died when spacecraft depressurized in space and crew didn’t have pressure suits on — suits would have saved the crew
- Apollo-Soyuz crew nearly died when gases from RSC thruster entered cabin through an open vent during descent — crew not wearing suits
- spacesuits were not integrated into space shuttle — retrofitted after the Challenger accident
Loading ...