Author Topic: Good reference3 on training suits  (Read 604 times)

Offline Dalhousie

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Good reference3 on training suits
« on: June 11, 2025, 05:16:44 AM »
I am looking for good sources on the design and construction of Apollo training suits such as these. Suggestions?



Offline raven

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Re: Good reference3 on training suits
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2025, 11:17:56 PM »
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/pressure-suit-apollo-a7-l-shepard-training/nasm_A19750836000
http://www.astronautix.com/a/a7l.html
According to this, the training suits were just the suits, though a different one than the flown article. Which makes sense. Why go to the effort of creating something that replicates the the look and feel of the suit, when you can just have the suit? Cooling would be a little different, as sublimation cooling doesn't work so well in an atmosphere of any thickness, but the liquid cooling garment itself would work just fine as long as the water could be cooled.
In fact, fursuiters and cosplayers with big bulky costumes sometimes use the same idea with ice water pumped through tubing sewn into a vest or shirt to provide cooling while walking the floor of the convention and similar
To sum up a somewhat rambling post, almost any source for the flown A7L will be of use here as well.

Offline Obviousman

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Re: Good reference3 on training suits
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2025, 09:07:17 PM »
« Last Edit: June 13, 2025, 09:10:11 PM by Obviousman »

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: Good reference3 on training suits
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2025, 10:37:08 PM »
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/pressure-suit-apollo-a7-l-shepard-training/nasm_A19750836000
http://www.astronautix.com/a/a7l.html
According to this, the training suits were just the suits, though a different one than the flown article. Which makes sense. Why go to the effort of creating something that replicates the the look and feel of the suit, when you can just have the suit? Cooling would be a little different, as sublimation cooling doesn't work so well in an atmosphere of any thickness, but the liquid cooling garment itself would work just fine as long as the water could be cooled.
In fact, fursuiters and cosplayers with big bulky costumes sometimes use the same idea with ice water pumped through tubing sewn into a vest or shirt to provide cooling while walking the floor of the convention and similar
To sum up a somewhat rambling post, almost any source for the flown A7L will be of use here as well.


I am familiar with the actual suits overall, I have real the primary and secondary sources extensively.   I am particularly interested in weights of the training suit(s) and backpack(s).  At close to 100 kg, using the real suits would not have been feasible for anything much.
« Last Edit: June 13, 2025, 10:39:17 PM by Dalhousie »

Offline Dalhousie

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Re: Good reference3 on training suits
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2025, 10:41:20 PM »
This isn't bad for some early designs...

https://web.mit.edu/16.00/www/aec/spacesuit.html

But this is a pretty good ebook:

https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/dressing-for-altitude-ebook_tagged.pdf

Got the second of those.  Good source on the development of get me down suits.  Not EVA suits.