- Spacesuits in fiction
Science fiction authors have designed imaginaryspacesuit s for their characters almost since the beginning offiction set inspace .Often,
comic book creators seem unaware of the effects of internalpressure which tends to inflate a spacesuit invacuum , and draw their imaginary spacesuits as hanging in folds like aboilersuit ; this can often be seen in theDan Dare stories, where the artist often drew from actual or photographed posed actors. Many space story writers merely mention a "spacesuit" without considering or describing design details, in the same way as they mention araygun or aspaceship without considering how its mechanism would work.The
breathing apparatus which is part of thePrimary Life Support System of realspace suit s is always arebreather type system. However, in illustrations in fiction such ascomic s, a spacesuit's life support system is often largely composed of two big backpack cylinders, as if it was open circuit; at least one fictional scenario hasliquid breathing spacesuits.Early concepts
Edison's Conquest of Mars
From "
Edison's Conquest of Mars " (1898):This illustration of the suit appears to be skintight (note the wrinkles), and to have a soft hood with a built-in
fullface mask , rather than a hard helmet, although according to the story the suits had helmets.This common early idea for a spacesuit would have not worked in reality for several reasons:
*The suits have no constant volume joints to prevent the suits from ballooning under their interior pressure.
*The suits have noglove s.
*The rubberized material of a diving suit would have quickly become brittle due to loss of volatiles in space vacuum; and also due to cold making the rubber brittle when out of sunlight, if they radiate heat away faster than the spaceman's body heat warms them.Early twentieth century
Early fictional spacesuits were heavily influenced by the "hard hat" diving suits which were in use from the 19th century on (see
Timeline of underwater technology#19th century ), including features such as the corselet and side windows on the helmet. Others were inspired by the hard shell "armored" typeatmospheric diving suit s of the period.Skintight spacesuits (
skinsuit s) appear in the originalBuck Rogers comics published from 1928 on. Thiscomic was so popular that expressions such as "Buck Rogers outfit" for real protective suits that look somewhat like spacesuits entered into common usage.With the rise of the Science fiction
pulp magazine s in the 1920s many depictions of imaginary spacesuits were created from scratch by artists such asFrank R. Paul , often appearing on the covers of the magazines. Very often these artists' creations were absurd, with such errors as a helmet whose neck hole is too narrow for the head to get through.Often fictional spacesuits are drawn with two large backpack cylinders as their only life-support gear, as if the exhaled gas is vented to space as in an ordinary
open-circuit scuba set .After World War II
Following
World War II , fictional spacesuits were influenced both by the real lifepressure suit s andgee suits which had seen use during the war for high-altitude aviation and also by the speculative articles on space travel which were published in magazines like theSaturday Evening Post andCollier's Weekly by such space pioneers asWernher von Braun andWilly Ley and which featured carefully considered spacesuit designs.In films
Some early space travel fiction films showed characters in spacesuits much more often than
Star Trek and afterwards.The First Men in the Moon
In
H.G. Wells 's original novel, "The First Men in the Moon ", published in 1901, the Moon has a breathable atmosphere during its two-week long day and spacesuits are not needed; the spacecraft has an airtight hatch, but no airlock.In the film version, made in 1964, the Moon has no atmosphere and no surface vegetation. Two types of spacesuits are featured.
* During the events of the story which take place in the 1890s,standard diving dress es, each fitted with a 1960s type aqualung cylinder worn on the back, are used as spacesuits. No provision is made to prevent the suits from ballooning in the vacuum, or to protect the hands from the vacuum.
* The film depicts the 1960s astronautspacesuit s as run-of-the-mill film prop spacesuits with a 1960s-typeaqualung cylinder each instead of aNASA -typelife support backpack.Dan Dare
In the
Dan Dare comic series, which started in April 1950 in the "Eagle" comic, the standard Spacefleet spacesuit had no backpack, had a corselet as perStandard Diving Dress , and its life-support system was stated to be between the layers of a double-walled helmet. [http://www.fpigraphics.co.uk/blogger/Dan%20DAre%20spacesuit.jpg] The spacesuits used in the Dan Dare scenario "Operation Saturn" by the villain Blasco are a different design and have small life-support backpacks. The Dan Dare stories also show various alien spacesuits.Heinlein
Author
Robert A. Heinlein 's novel "Have Space Suit—Will Travel " (1958) drew both on these contemporary articles and on his experience designing pressure suits during World War II and featured a detailed description of a very realistic space suit with constant volume joints and fixed helmet and shoulder yoke, which was entered through a frontalgasket edzipper .Front cover illustrations (one shown here, one linked to in its caption) for the novel obviously inspired by contemporary diving apparatus show its life-support backpack as a correctly-drawn old-type
open-circuit two-cylinderaqualung as used forscuba diving with manifold and large round regulator andA-clamp . The artist avoided the error found in most comic-strip drawings of old-type aqualungs, of drawing each breathing tube coming directly from a cylinder top and no regulator. But to make this type of aqualung (as shown here) work in space, its regulator's existing perforated "wet-side" cover would have to be replaced by a sealed cover with a spring-loaded exit valve to keep a breathable pressure on the "wet" side of the regulator disphragm. And the whole breathing system would have to be checked for leaks which would be harmless in scuba diving but would blow in space vacuum.
*On the first image the breathing tubes run to a control panel on his chest, and the regulator can be seen. The image shows two spacesuits, whose helmets differ. One has aflashlight on top; the other has two flashlights, one on each side, and on top what may be a radio or an instrument (radar?) pack.
*On the second image the breathing tubes run to each side of the "chin" of his helmet, and the regulator is hidden behind his head.The spacesuits in these drawings differ much, but all depict the helmet base as being wide enough for the wearer to get it on over his head, showing that their artists had paid little attention to the writer's detailed descriptions.In a description of the spacesuit Heinlein appears to be confused about the various effects of
oxygen toxicity and bends andnitrogen narcosis . [page 27 of the February 2005 edition (ISBN 1-4165-0549-0)]Heinlein's description of pressure regulation came very close to the experience of astronauts in the Apollo program. His characters preferred to keep the pressure of their suits just high enough for survival, but not high enough to make it difficult to move around, much like the selected design pressure range of the real Apollo
A7L suits.The life support system of the suits in "
Have Space Suit—Will Travel " was very similar to the backup Oxygen Purge System on the real ApolloPrimary Life Support System . The only major difference being that the Apollo suits had a largely automatic pressure regulator, and Heinlein's suit had manual pressure regulation.One major component of modern pressure suit
Primary Life Support System backpacks which he missed was thelithium hydroxide canister which absorbscarbon dioxide from the air in the suit: seerebreather . Without this, his suit's breathing apparatus would have to be open circuit and limited to approximately two hours on a filling ofoxygen orair , with the time varying according to exertion and cylinder size and his body size.Another was the cooling system. He correctly recognised that overheating would be a major problem for the wearer of the suit. His cooling system was the same as the Apollo Oxygen Purge System: waste oxygen by letting it flow at a high rate and use it to dump heat. In practice, real suits used a water supply feeding a
sublimator to provide cooling.In "
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls " the suits are strongly influenced by experience in the space program. He correctly describes a technique for helping an injured man in a pressure suit by decompressing the suit for less than a minute. Earlier books such as "Rocket Ship Galileo " described horrible injuries for people decompressed for short times.In "
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress " Heinlein has people going on to the Lunar surface for about half a day in daylight and suffering from radiation exposure. In practice, overheating was the biggest risk of lunar surface operations, and cooling systems were easy to build.Armored space suits
*
Robert A. Heinlein 's novel "Starship Troopers " (1959) famously featured armored power-assisted spacesuit-like battlesuits used in combat. The suits are arguably one of the first examples ofpowered armor to be written of in American literature. The Japanese "anime "OVA film "Starship Troopers" (1988) based on the novel also used powered armor suits inspired by Heinlein's example, but they appeared differently and incorporated built-in weaponry. However, the 1997 film's interpretation did not use powered armor, much to the consternation of the book's fans.
*Joe Haldeman 's novel "The Forever War " (1974) featured armored vacuum combat suits which were similar in principle but more advanced in design. Because the novel takes place over the timespan of several hundred years, the evolution of the battle suits can be observed and commented on by the lead character throughout with new features introduced- such as emergency hydraulic-powered joints which sever the limb of a soldier and injectanesthetics &blood plasma if enough damage is inflicted and a risk of decompression is apparent.After first real space flights
After the establishment of
NASA , and the first space missions, fictional spacesuits tended to follow real spacesuit design, including such features as a large rectangular backpack to hold life support components, except in low-budget science fiction movies and comics which were still inspired more by imagination than by reality.Dune film
During the production of the spacesuits and
stillsuit s for the film "Dune", the prop andcostume designers stated a need to avoid "the standard outer-space stuff ... that sort of NASA look". [pp 69 & 71, "The Making of Dune", by Ed Naha, publ.R.H.Allen 1984, ISBN 0 426 19641 4 ]Gerry Anderson UFO series
The
Gerry Anderson UFO series of the late 1960s/early 1970s features two types of spacesuit:
*Alien spacesuits, filled with a breathable liquid to resist acceleration stresses on the occupant.
*SHADO issue spacesuits.The design of the alien spacesuits was revised during filming; in some episodes they are partly covered with bright metallic
chainmail , and in some they are as per the image shown. The studio which made the series seems to have had only two alien spacesuit costumes. In the episode "Ordeal" where two aliens carry a human (Foster) who is in an alien spacesuit, one of the aliens has to be out of shot, or else 3 alien spacesuits would have been needed. The helmet splits into front and back halves to get it on over his head.
* [http://www.ufoseries.com/behindTheScenes/fosterAlien.jpgThis behind-the-scenes photo] shows the earlier (with chainmail) type of alien spacesuit, and a SHADO issue spacesuit.
* [http://www.ufoseries.com/behindTheScenes/flightPathEnding.jpgA photo] showing a SHADO issue spacesuitGundam
Spacesuits are commonly used in the
Gundam anime metaseries, but are often renamed to avoid confusion with space-use mobile suits. In theUniversal Century timeline, spacesuits are called "normal suits"; theAfter Colony timeline calls them "astrosuit". Two types of spacesuit are frequently seen - as well as the more traditional bulky style, mobile suit pilots wear a thinner, lighter suit, better designed for operating a mobile suit's controls. Gundam spacesuits often have a pouch full of adhesive strips, used to temporarily seal tears in the suit (as demonstrated inMobile Suit Gundam ) or cracks in the helmet (as demonstrated inChar's Counterattack ).kintight spacesuits
The potential for greater mobility and simpler operation with a skintight spacesuit, generally referred to as a
space activity suit or mechanical counterpressure suit, make this type of space suit an attractive choice for fiction, where flexibility of use can be a boon to plot development.Some space story writers whose work mentions flexible skin-tight spacesuits include:
* The spacesuits in earlyBuck Rogers comic s seem to be skintight.
*Jerry Pournelle , who has been extensively involved in analysis and design of space technology systems. Pournelle envisions a layered design where the inner flexible suit can be overlain with various kinds of thermal protection or armor, for protection against meteoroids or space battle damage, in the same way aflak jacket protects the occupants of a warplane. Skintight spacesuits first appeared in recent science fiction inJerry Pournelle 's story "Exiles To Glory" in 1977
*A. Bertram Chandler .
*Stephen Baxter in his Manifold series, notably 'Time'. Baxter's work covers the technical aspects of using the suit for short EVAs, including the need to don the suit without creasing to prevent embolisms.
* InLarry Niven 's "Known Space ", skintights are the preferred type of spacesuit used by belters in the 22nd and 23rd century. They often decorated them with elaborate (and expensive) torso paintings as a form ofheraldry . Pournelle's design in particular is featured in some of Niven's laterRingworld novels.
*Victor Koman inKings of the High Frontier .
*Kim Stanley Robinson used suits called "Walkers" that work on a similar principle for Martian surface exploration in theMars Trilogy novels.
*Roger Leloup in the adventures ofYoko Tsuno
* InSpider Robinson 's novel "Stardance" (1979) they played a significant role.
*Skinsuit s feature rather prominently in theHonorverse books byDavid Weber .ymbiotes
Spider Robinson's novel
Starseed (the 2nd volume of hisStardance trilogy) andJohn Varley 's short story "Equinoctial" (from his collection "Picnic on Nearside") both feature aliensymbiote s which act as living space suits, supplying their wearer with oxygen and recycling waste gases and deriving their energy fromsolar power .pace fiction without prominent use of spacesuits
In some space fiction, space suits are largely absent. Spacesuits are rarely seen in the original ' TV series (1966-1969), mostly due to television budget constraints. They play a more significant part in several of the movies- ' (1979), ' (1982), ' (1996)- and several episodes of the TV series "
Star Trek Voyager " (1995-2001). Space suits are far more frequently used in theprequel series "Star Trek Enterprise " (2001-2005), though they also doubled as environmental-hazard suits.Spacesuits appear in all the original
Star Wars movies, but only used by pilots of fighter-typespacecraft . Spacesuits used outside spacecraft occur in some Star Warsnovel s andcomic s.Force fields instead of spacesuits
Some fiction scenarios, instead of spacesuits, have a personal force field which keeps a bubble of breathable atmosphere around the user. Examples are:
* TheFlickinger field inJack McDevitt 's fiction: A Flickinger field projects just above the user's clothing except for an extended bubble in front of the face for breathability. They are primarily invisible but can be seen as a faint aura in the right light. It occurs in the novels "The Engines of God", "Deepsix", "Chindi", "Omega", and "Odyssey", and the short story "Oculus" (2002).
* John Varley's novels "Steel Beach " and "The Golden Globe " feature force-field spacesuits whose mechanism replaces one of the user'slung s and in use generates a reflective force-field around the wearer.
* There is an example in the "" episode "The Slaver Weapon ".
* The bubble around the boys' spacecraft in "Explorers".References
External links to other fictional spacesuits
* [http://www.walterklassen.com/images/propscans/image/spacesuit.jpg] [http://www.walterklassen.com/images/propscans/image/spacesuit%20helmet%20back.jpg] in the
Jason X scenario
* [http://users.keyway.net/~thalek/Tholian.html] Fan-made replica of the spacesuit fromStar Trek episode "The Tholian Web "
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/s2_08-09gallery/1024/planet_surface.jpg] Film prop spacesuit fromDoctor Who series
* [http://homepages.tesco.net/d.sisson/suit.htm] About restoring aSpace 1999 film prop spacesuitee also
* [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Spacesuit 'Spacesuit' entry on the Star Trek Wiki]
* [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Space_suit 'Spacesuit' entry on the Star Wars Wiki]
* [http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3m.html Atomic Rocket: Spacesuits] : descriptions and many images of fictional spacesuits
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