Editor's Note: Copenhagen Suborbitals is a DIY spaceflight company in the process of designing a space capsule for manned suborbital spaceflight. Here, founder Kristian von Bengtson and his collaborators are in the process of testing a specially designed spacesuit and taking rad pictures.
Today was indeed a very special day! Both Peter and I got suited up in the DIY spacesuit by Cameron Smith.
Donning the suit is a long procedure that starts with putting on the liquid cooling long-johns -- carefully. Next step is getting into the actual pressure suit, which is a modified dry-suit with pressure, communication and cooling fittings, and a neck-ring for the Russian high-altitude helmet.
Finally, you don an orange cover-all suit, which has the purpose of keeping any fittings, straps and laces from becoming a liability during ingress and egress.
The helmet has straps that hold it down tightly, preventing it from rising above eye-level when pressurized.
This model - which is a perfectly working proof of concept - will be augmented with constant volume joints. These are basically elbow and knee joints which are flexible but prevented from expanding by having metal wires in the construction. This is also the old method of most pressure and space suits throughout history.
I have to say this suit is incredible, and wearing it today was a remarkable experience. Not only did it fit like a neatly tailored jacket, you instantly become very aware of isolation, the risks involved in this mission, and the complexity of the suit when the “visor down” command is effectuated.
Even though you have a bunch of people next to you - operating life support and with cameras - you feel all alone and all sounds disappear. They're replaced by the hissing of the breathing-gas and pressure-gas.
Getting the suit at a pressure approximating 2.0 pounds per square inch made it instantly expand like a balloon. The flexibility of your arms and legs gets impaired to a point where it is not possible to sit down or reach your shoulders. I tried to do the boogie-woogie but failed.
This will change when the flexible joints are installed.
If sitting all alone inside a space capsule will produce strange feelings of isolation, then trying on the suit is a good test for that. Once inside, you become very aware of your own body and the one life you have. You quickly dive deeply into a space where the outside world is excluded.
In fact, being in the suit was a very meditative experience and I will gladly do this again.
Tomorrow I will work on seating design and egress tests with Cameron and John. We still haven’t tried to exit the capsule wearing a pressurized suit, and there is still a lot of work to be done on interior systems such as reach-volumes and placing control panels.
Enjoy the video of Cameron Smith getting donned.
This week is all I hoped for!
Ad Astra
Kristian von Bengtson
