It’s An Empty Suit
Book Review: Fashioning Apollo by Nicholas de Monchaux
Spacesuit--Fashioning Apollo is one of the most elegant and beautifully designed and printed books available. It’s a paperback edition but the cover jacket has a smooth, rubberized coating. It’s a pleasure to hold in one’s hands. This is an experience that no digital book can ever match.
Although published in 2011 by M.I.T. Press, the information regarding the NASA spacesuits, with the emphasis on the Apollo suits is relatively up to date. The author explores the development of spacesuits from the early pressure suits in the 1930’s onward to the space program of the 1960’s. There is not much to be said in this book regarding spacesuits in the Shuttle era and beyond. The author Nicholas de Monchaux does provide a good history of suit development for mankind’s reach for the stars.
Since this book is published by the United States’s most distinguished science and engineering universities I was looking for various technical details that unfortunately, this book does not provide. And that was the main reason I bought this book in the first place. It is in fact, more of an easy reading account of spacesuit development for the masses.
Radiation
“NASA’s focus now is on sending humans beyond low-Earth orbit to Mars… We are trying to develop the technologies to get there, it is actually a huge technological challenge. There are a couple of really big issues. For one thing – Radiation. Once you get outside the Earth’s magnetic field we are going to be exposing the astronauts to not just radiation coming from the Sun, but also to cosmic radiation. That's a higher dose than we think humans right now should really get.”
– Dr Ellen Stofan, Chief Scientist, NASA, and principal advisor
to NASA Administrator – BBC Newsnight interview, November 2014
"Astronauts on the lunar surface could in reality be exposed to every kind of radiation – alpha, beta, microwave, x-ray, gamma, Bremsstrahlung, Cherenkov radiation, Askaryan radiation, high-energy protons and neutrons, galactic cosmic rays (GCR) and solar particle events (SPE)."
LUNAR GEOLOGY AND IONIZING RADIATION from a Revisionist Perspective
– Dr Bulcsu István Siklós
There are many hazards in space once people leave the safety of the protective magnetosphere of the earth and radiation is one of the main hazards. It’s coming from everywhere and fills the vacuum of space. There are cosmic galactic rays, gamma rays, x rays, charged protons and neutrons, just to mention a few. The surface of the moon is basically a nuclear hazmat zone. Even the famous moon dust is radiative. That, coupled with extremes of heat and cold in a heavy vacuum, designates the surface of the moon a place where no life could ever exist.
My main interest was discovering the radiation protection in the spacesuits. As it turned out, the book mentions nothing about it. There is no documentation of radiation shield development, testing, or anything related. Even the word “radiation” is not listed in the index. The fact that 21 layers of various synthetic materials were used and not a single one has a reference to radiation in a book such as this, is a major omission. On the contrary, it is not mentioned by NASA either. One would think radiation shielding would be one of the most important aspects of a spacesuit, and it has no bearing in this book. (It should be noted that the Apollo spacesuit manual, linked below, which can be downloaded from NASA makes no mention of radiation protection in the suit or helmet either.)
It is unconscionable to believe that the astronauts would be placed in such a hazardous environment without protection from one of the main hazards they faced on the surface of the moon--death by high energy particles.
The multiple layers of insulation for thermal protection are documented, particularly the use of aluminized mylar which is listed for thermal protection. So at least the astronauts had protection for heat over 200 degrees and cold temperatures of over -200 degrees on the moon. But the development of this material gets no mention. How was plastic and a metal bonded together? How does it work to protect an astronaut? How was it tested for this purpose? The reader is never told. Just as the beta cloth covering gets nothing more than a vague mention.
Is radiation shielding in the spacesuits classified?
Apollo spacesuit layers. Radiation shielding not listed. Image courtesy of NASA.
Don’t leave out the helmet!
Yes, it is left out of any mention in relation to spacesuit development and astronaut protection for the moon's hazardous environment. If one reads the NASA Apollo spacesuit manual, it mentions the helmet being constructed out of polycarbonate. In other words, plastic. The visor assembly was polycarbonate as well. Another fact that Fashioning Apollo makes no mention of since helmet development. A most crucial development totally ignored by the author.
But the most distressing part of my own research into this matter involves finding that the spacesuit helmet has no thermal or radiation protection of any kind, as so stated in the NASA spacesuit manual. You do not need to be an expert in high energy particle physics to know that plastic is not a radiation shield. The helmet does feature a beta cloth covering but that is a flame retardant cloth with fiberglass woven in. It does not protect from the aforementioned hazards. No lead is embedded in the fabric.
On the other hand, the gold visor does protect the astronaut’s eyes from damaging ultraviolet rays but those rays are not life threatening. It can’t be expected for a thin layer of plastic to protect a person from the afore mentioned radiation and severe heat and cold. Why put thermal protection in the suit but ignore the helmet? How the astronauts, if they actually walked on the moon, survived being there is a mystery. A big enough mystery to strongly question if men actually landed there at all.
Do their heads not matter?
In Closing
There is so much more that could have been written in Fashioning Apollo to round out what the public can know about spacesuits. The history of development is good but the author often jumps into fashion design of the 1950’s, how television works from the moon, JFK, the flight simulators, artist Robert Rauschenberg’s astronaut prints, and then leaves the reader in the lurch for the good stuff. The radiation shielding should hold an important place in a book of this kind, but it is never covered.
What is to be found here? An empty suit.
Notes
Excellent article at Aulis by Scott Henderson--Apollo Space Suits: Shenanigans and Shortcomings.
controversy. https://www.aulis.com/suits.htm
The Dangers of Space Radiation
https://www.aulis.com/investigation3.htm
LUNAR GEOLOGY AND IONISING RADIATION from a Revisionist Perspective
https://www.aulis.com/PDF/lunar_geology.pdf
NASA Apollo Spacesuit manual