🚀 go-pugleaf

-From: higgins@fnalo.fnal.gov (Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey)
-Subject: Gloveless in Vacuum? (was Re: Man in space ... )
-Date: 4 Nov 92 15:34:38 GMT

-In article <720796989snx@osea.demon.co.uk>, andy@osea.demon.co.uk (Andrew Haveland-Robinson) writes:
->>   What will happen if the space suite of an austronaut gets ripped in space ?
-> Well Nick, my feeling is that he would nearly explode.  

-*Bzzt* Wrong, but thank you for playing...

-Ever put your hand up against the nozzle of vacuum cleaner? Your skin
-will hold about 1 atmosphere pressure nicely.

-The reason I'm writing, instead of just allowing the discussion to
-peter out, is to mention that a suggestion of Hermann Oberth's:
-Astronauts might wear spacesuits without gloves for delicate work!

-He reasoned that your skin can stand up to low pressure without major
-medical problems, so maybe you could work without pressure gloves in
-space.  You'd have to wear thin gloves for thermal and UV protection,
-and making a good wrist seal on your spacesuit might be tough-- but
-maybe not as hard as the problem of making a really flexible pressure
-glove! I think this was in his Fifties book *Man in Space*.

Correction (this is NIST - we don't 'Bzzt' here :-) : Henry says that the 
human skin can withstand a pressure differential of at least a few hundred
millimeters of mercury, *provided* you have mechanical support to prevent
the underlying tissues from swelling. Without that, I doubt your hands would
be usable for more than a few minutes at best.

Check the references on skintight suits - I'm not sure whether the exact
structure of the gloves is described.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov