Recent content by Wayland

Here's a couple of links for you to check on, and try to get a copy of G. Harry Stine's Handbook of Model Rocketry. This will give you the basics to design your own rocket from scratch. I know, I've used it myself since 1968. http://www.nar.org/NARforeign.html...

My apologies, folks! :blush: I either misread or misremembered the price tag for a conventional pressure suit. According to 5 different websites I visited today, the cost of a new, standard issue NASA pressure suit as of 2009 was a minimum of US$12 million. The highest price I found was US$20...

One of the many articles I looked at while researching this suit threw some numbers around on the relative US$ cost differences between the BioSuit and a conventional pressure suit. The breakdown was US$ 1+ million per unit for a pressure suit versus a unit price of <100K US$ per BioSuit. I'll...

I don't know where the data came from but apparently the energy expenditure on the wearer is around 20% for the Biosuit and 400% for the full pressure suit, according to: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/spacesuits.php (See Skin Suit) My read is that they are for dirtside use on Mars, etc...

According to the article, a laser mapping system is used to generate a pattern, and the suit is precision built to fit you and only you, Probe help you if you should lose or gain weight. There was mention of foam pads to fill in void areas, also. I imagine it is similar to putting on a diver's...

They appear to be somewhat similar, but the XR2 crew look like they have rigid, or semi-rigid reinforces in various locations, like Imperial Stormtroopers. They might wear a skinsuit under the "armor". Wayland "Mistakes made there will be. Blame others, they will." - Master Yoda ----------...

I ran into this over the weekend while I was researching spacesuits. http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit/biosuit_images/index.html I remember this from Jerry Pournelle's "Exiles to Glory" around 1977, but apparently it's been around since at least 1968 as the Space Activity Suit. Space activity...

Practical Engineers My father always referred to the engineers that learned their specialty "on the job" as "practical" engineers, and respected them highly.

Hmmmn. Well, I just recently hit the "Free" table at the local library. This is where the donated books for the "Friends of the Library" sale go if they don't make the cut for inclusion in the sale. I came home with 2 grocery bags of paperbacks, including 35 old Ace Double SF novels, for free...

New guy in the orbit Greetings all. I've been lurking here for a month, so it's about time for me to introduce myself. My names is Steve and I'm a retiree who watched John Glenn blast off live, in a Mercury capsule no less. A lifelong fan of SF and other speculative type fiction, history, scale...