Quote:
In an independent space suit, the heat is ultimately transferred to a thin sheet of ice (formed by a separate feed water source). Due to the extremely low pressure in space, the heated ice sublimates directly to water vapor, which is then vented away from the suit.
Because the space environment is essentially a vacuum, heat cannot be lost through heat convection, and can only be directly dissipated through thermal radiation, a much slower process. Thus, even though the environment of space can be extremely cold, excessive heat build-up is inevitable. Without an LCVG, there would be no means by which to expel this heat, and it would affect not only EVA performance, but the health of the suit occupant as well. The LCVG used with the Apollo/Skylab A7L suit could remove heat at a rate of approximately 586 watts.[1]
OK, the clue is in the first paragraph.
So the ice is outside the suit and is probably in the backpack, (as it is affected by vacuum and vented).
Interesting.
I was toying with idea of using water in that backpack, and it boiling naturally in a vacuum would draw the heat out of a metal tube heat exchanger, with the astronaut's suit water flowing through the inside core, while water outside the core drew heat away as water boiled off. Sort of an aquarium in the backpack , but it was control vented slowly so the water wouldn't violently boil off.
I discarded it and thought on the lines of Gadge in a more high tech approach. Simple proved effective.
Neil had 45- 50 seconds of fuel left for the descent landing. He took manual control when the guidance computer was programmed to land in a "unsafe" rock strewn zone, and moved onwards in the Eagle.
The 1969 guidance computer had a clock speed of 2 megahertz, and this might be interesting to those in this forum:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
Last edited by Mdyar on 03 Feb 2012, 1:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
01 Feb 2012, 3:33 pm
