Short video from Apollo 16

[Arsonik]

I saw this for this first time when it was posted to wimp.com a few days ago. Thought I'd share it here in case anyone hasn't seen it. Pretty funny.

http://www.wimp.com/astronauthammer/

[3_bit]

What they needed was a $10 reach extender.

[Arsonik]

At the end of the video you can hear him saying he is going to get the tongs.

[Motokid600]

Im surprised at how much these guys jumped, tripped, fell and bounced on the moon. I mean look how dirty his suit is. Were we not aware of the razor blade dust before these missions? No harm no foul of course, but I just cant believe they didn't take more caution.

[rdfox]

We weren't aware how abrasive the dust was at the time, no. However, we were anticipating a lot sharper rocks. The EVA suit used on Apollo was a two-layer garment, each of which was then made up of several sublayers itself. Not counting the "union suit" water-cooled long underwear, you had the pressure suit itself, which was "a one piece, five-layer "torso-limb" suit with convoluted joints made of synthetic and natural rubber at the shoulders, elbows, wrist, hips, ankle, and knee joints, "link-net" meshing to prevent the suit from ballooning at the joints, and a shoulder "cable block" assembly to allow the shoulder to be extended and retracted by its wearer."

Over that, you had the Integrated Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment, the tough white cover layer that everyone associates with EVA suits (the actual pressure suit itself on the Apollo suits was light blue!). This was to protect the pressure suit from abrasion by dust, rocks, or contact with the LM, protect it from possible micrometeoroid penetration, and was white to help control heat buildup in the suit. "The garment was made from thirteen layers of material which were (from inside to outside): rubber coated nylon, 5 layers of aluminized Mylar, 4 layers of nonwoven Dacron, 2 layers of aluminized Kapton film/Beta marquisette laminate, and Teflon coated Beta filament cloth. Additionally, the ITMG also used a patch of 'Chromel-R' woven steel (the familiar silver-colored patch seen especially on the suits worn by the Apollo 11 crew) for abrasion protection from the Portable Life Support System (PLSS) backpack. Chromel-R was also used on the uppers of the lunar boots and on the EVA gloves. Finally, patches of Teflon were used for additional abrasion protection on the knees waist and shoulders of the ITMG." Basically, even though we didn't know how abrasive the dust was, we DID provide them with a cover layer over the actual pressure suit itself that was just this side of being bulletproof. Most likely our next-generation lunar suit (and Mars suit, and other surface-exploration suits) will use a lot of Kevlar in the ITMG, to provide even better impact resistance. I do know that the Project Constellation Lunar Surface Activity Module (the big brother to the Apollo Lunar Module) was going to include a full airlock that could act as a "mud room" for putting on and removing the EVA suits, preventing dust contamination of the spacecraft itself, and that it's now expected that future EVA suits will use a "suitlock" feature where they mount directly to the hatch with an airtight seal, with their own rear entry hatch, so that instead of having to carry a heavy airlock, future spacecraft will carry the EVA suits on the outside and the crew will merely enter and exit them directly into the spacecraft. (The prototype of this can be seen on the prototype Surface Exploration Vehicle. Presumably, there will remain a small airlock for loading surface samples into the spacecraft, but that's smaller and lighter than a human-sized airlock, much less the consumables required to depressurize and repressurize the entire vehicle whenever an EVA starts and ends, like was done on Apollo.) (Information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo/Skylab_A7L )

For the record, a small puncture to the suit would not have necessarily been immediately fatal (though it would have immediately scrubbed the remainder of the EVA and any further planned EVAs); typically, EVA suits are designed to maintain pressure with a pinhole leak in them without anyone even noticing other than increased oxygen consumption, while they have a backup O2 supply that can generally handle a hole up to about 1/4-inch diameter for a minimum of 30 minutes, allowing the occupant to rapidly flee to an airlock and repressurize it. (According to astronaut Michael L. Gernhardt, "[a] big leakâ€â€like a big hole in the suit, say a half-inch hole or something like that, or if your glove blew offâ€â€would pretty much be a real bad day for you.") Thus far, there has only been one known suit puncture, on STS-37, when a glove was punctured. The leak was partially sealed by the astronaut's own blood(!), and nobody even noticed the puncture until the suit was inspected back on Earth. (Information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Science/2007_August_15#Hole_in_a_spacesuit )

Also, it's now known that many of the moonwalkers HAVE developed very minor cases of silicosis from their exposure to lunar dust; this was a further motivating factor for incorporating some sort of "mud room" airlock on the LSAM, to reduce the amount of exposure to said dust. (From what I understand, in terms of the level of silicosis, having been on one of the Apollo "J-missions" with the lunar rover, three days on the lunar surface, and five or six EVAs, meaning breathing quite a lot of lunar dust, is about equivalent to spending one year or so working in a coal mine. You'll end up with detectible silicosis, but it's not enough to hinder you in any way; you'll just cough a bit more often and be a little more susceptible to sinus infections and chest colds, and might not even notice it if you weren't being monitored so closely for medical effects from your space flight...)

And for the record, the "tongs" they mentioned at the end of the video essentially *are* the same as a set of $10 reach extenders; they were primarily intended for picking up rock samples, since you can't really bend very well in a pressure suit. They also proved quite adept at retrieving dropped tools, and, when fitted with the head of a six-iron, performing one-handed sandtrap shots...

Edited November 24, 2013 by rdfox