Moon Walk: The Next Generation

June 16, 2008

One of my favorite space-flight movies is Apollo 13, in part because it's one of the few films out there where the science geeks get to be the heroes, and also because it really captured the essence of exploration, of rocketing into the unknown in a big metal tube, not sure if you'd be able to make it back.  The technology seems a bit old and rickety by today's standards. The first time I saw it, I walked out of the theater, turned to my companion and said, "I never realized before -- we went to the moon in a souped-up Buick!" But it got the job done, by golly.

I was thinking about Apollo 13 while watching the latest episode of the new Discovery Channel series, When We Left Earth (airing Sunday nights). It's nice to revisit our space history, but NASA has not been idle in the interim since then. The agency spent the first two weeks of June testing several models of robotic lunar vehicles and new spacesuits in the sand dunes of Moses Lake, Washington, in preparation for future lunar landings. Specifically, any new spacesuits will be designed specifically to expand the exploration range of human astronauts. To that end, NASA awarded the "Spacesuit of the Future" contract to Oceaneering International of Houston for the Constellation Program mission, which has slated a human spaceflight mission for 2015.

I'll bet the designs won't be nearly as cool as the sleek, skintight Biosuit being developed by Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and engineering systems at MIT. Newman isn't a fan of the big, bulky spacesuit designs currently in use, which can really limit mobility -- not so much in the microgravity environment of a spacewalk, but certainly on the surface of the moon.

Spacesuits now weigh about 300 pounds, getting heavier and heavier with each subsequent mission.  The weight comes from the gas pressurization system that exerts pressure on the astronaut's body, protecting it from the vacuum of space. Newman's design relies on a mechanical counter-pressure from wrapping multiple tight layers of material around the body. The result is a suit that is skintight but stretches with the body.

The advantages include increased flexibility and mobility, as well as added safety: if a traditional spacesuit gets punctured by a stray bit of space debris, the situation is life-threatening for the astronaut. A puncture in the biosuit can be quickly repaired, wrapped like bandage, without affecting the rest of the suit. And for the fit-conscious astronaut, the biosuit could also offer varying resistance levels so s/he could exercise regularly, thereby offsetting the usual loss of muscle strength in space. By the time NASA might be ready to launch a human mission to Mars in 10+ years, Newman's suit might be ready to be pressed into service.

As for the actual rockets (for the Ares I and Orion missions), apparently NASA had originally planned a return to something approaching the booster rocket architecture of the Apollo missions, per this report. Or, as they called it, "maximizing the use of heritage systems and technology." They've since opted for newer alternatives, "due to the ability to achieve greater cost savings with alternate technology, and the inability to recreate heritage technology." [emphasis mine]

Did you catch that? NASA has apparently forgotten how to build certain key aspects of those souped-up Buicks featured in Apollo 13. Most notably, the Orion project was supposed to rely on the same heat shield design as the Apollo program -- mostly as a fallback technology for the craft's thermal protection system -- "but was unable to recreate the Apollo material."

At least we have the biosuit as an example of old technology made new again -- or rather, made possible by current breakthroughs in modern physics research. The original concepts for its design were first developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Neither the technology nor the materials were available back then. They are now. Science marches on. So astronauts of the future might be able to explore space (or lunar terrains) more extensively, and look pretty darn stylin' doing so. NASA might have forgotten how to make the material for the old shields, but they still get the job done, by golly.

Photo: Biosuit prototype, MIT News Office.

Comments

[Dave Mosher]

Wow, that's braindrain at its finest. Or maybe the heritage technology is too unsafe for them to want to create it, and that's the nice way of saying it...

[Slakin]

I don't interpret the inability to recreate heritage technology as having simply forgotten how to do so - that's nonsense.

What they are trying to communicate is that the facilities to fabricate the large boosters for example, such as the F1's and the J1's, no longer exist - many suppliers do not even exist. Besides, the technology that went into the shuttle boosters is far superior. Those boosters were, for the longest time, the most complicated and sophisticated machines ever built by man. If you look hard enough, you can still find parts to an F1 on Ebay. But, look at what went into restoring the Saturn V's at Huntsville and Washington.

This isn't because we have forgotten how to. Try to build a V1 and see how hard it is to come by parts. For that matter, try to replicate a '54 Buick and see how many parts are still available. Does that mean we have forgotten how to make this stuff??

It's an even bigger point that the ideology behind the shuttle was different than the thinking behind the Saturn V. The Saturn V belonged to the old Von Braun era, and the shuttle was the new reusable technology. BTW, try to find parts to the shuttle. They can't even get shuttle parts anymore and if they could they would probably extend the program. They had to buy a bunch of parts and keep them. They are all very special and if no manufacturer is going to make one or two now and then. And even if NASA wanted to flush the money for some parts and solicited bids, etc., they would be compelled to incorporate improvements. That's why the shuttle still flies with ancient computer technology - if you are going to change this, then why not change that, and so forth, forever, until you have redesigned the whole thing. They just can't do that.

And why does anyone want to go back to Saturn V's? Is it because you think the spirit back then was somehow in the machine itself???

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Since Slakin seems to be taking this VERY personally, I suppose I should clarify that the intent of those tongue-in-cheek paragraphs was to poke gentle fun as the vagaries of "NASA-ese" and easily such phrasing can be mis-read. :)

[David Chandler]

Both things are true, I think. It's true that many of the materials and parts that went into the Saturn V are unavailable know, but it's also the knowhow that's missing. Even if we did have the right materials, we don't have the blueprints for the structures, or for the rocket engines themselves. We don't have the formulas for some of the materials. We didn't bother to fully debrief the only people who had the hands-n knowledge of the crucial details of assembly.
And is new technology better? Well, the shuttle has many wonderful and unequalled capabilities. But it also has serious drawbacks, like safety.
Two out of two of the shuttle's fatal accidents, each killing a crew of seven, had to do with its unique and ungainly structure, with the crew cabin located beside and below much of the firepower. In one case it was fire spurting out from the side of a booster rocket, in the other insulation falling from the external tank. In both cases, a crew cabin located at the top like Apollo, with an abort rocket on top, would have made such accidents survivable -- or impossible.

[Jennifer Ouellette]

Thanks to Dave Chandler for adding some clarification. I might add that NASA -- per the linked report -- was looking to "heritage technology" not out of nostalgia, but to see if perhaps the lessons of the past might be applicable to solving some of the very real problems they'll be facing in future missions.