NASA mulls strap-on astronaut carrier

actually, it's a cool way of eliminating an airlock

Those are "enter from the rear" (no jokes please) suits like the Russian ORLAN units.

This means you get in them from inside, close up, close an inner door, and you're ready to go w/o faffing about with depressing a large airlock space.

Actually a unique and non-obvious idea from NASA! Who woulda thunk?

Anonymous Vulture is right

Those suits look like a brilliant idea, each one is a mini-airlock that has a practical function. They can be entered and detached simultaneously without the space and weight of a two-person airlock (big enough for 2 people IN SPACESUITS, that is) or the inconvenience and delays of cycling a smaller, one-person airlock, twice.

Someone put a bit of thought into that one.

Good thinking there...

Blimey, I think the dudefromAres is right on this one!

I was just thinking though - how is this a backup? Once you've got two lunanauts inside, how to you get two extras in - then it hit me: you put two more astro-sockets on the other side! Brilliant! You could even put two whole extra suits there as a backup.

Neat thinking. Neat. Now was this really NASA's idea? I mean, they usually find the most complex and difficult way to do things - this idea sounds entrely Russian to me. They are Orlan suits after all.

Until....

Thats a great idea until one of the suits doesn't quite close correctly and you are stuck outside the rover with no air or pressure. Seems safer to use an airlock where you can find problems slowly and in a controlled environment. It is a great idea though, I just don't want to test it.

Seen it before...

Check this comic:

http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1000/fv00981.htm

(And the next few frames)

Gosh, do I like the text from the last frame:

"It's a solid, simple, Russian design. No bells. Only whistles. If you hear a whistle, it means your suit's leaking. Get back inside."

and what happens...

if the HAL 9000 suddenly decides to lock you out?

Yeah right

That thing will never get off the ground. Forget about it. Nothing to see here. Move along now.

until... eh ? why is that a problem ?

Why would you be locked outside of the craft if your suit failed to close.. the suit looks to be sealed to the vehicle whether the internal doors are closed or not - otherwise how would you ever get in or out of the suit ? either way if you were trapped you'd either be in the vehicle safely, in the suit safely or the suit / vehicle door is open and you are still sealed from the outside. I'm sure there would be precautions to prevent the suit being detatched if the suit and vehicle are not sealed... what's the problem then ? great design !

Dust

The other nice thing about the external suits is that it stops the astronauts bringing in the fine lunar dust into the module. The lunar dust is quite likely to cause problems in confined spaces as it will get everywhere.

Hmmmm

"NASA has been thinking about sending small packages ahead of time that the landing mission could assemble."

What like the fake remains of the first moon landing?

Not a new idea...

Greetings -

Suitports are NOT a new idea - I wrote about them in my 2001 SF novel, Shadows of Medusa (see amazon.com). I first heard of them a few years before that, in a Mars Society study in Michigan-US. Not sure where they got the idea, but it probably originated within NASA back in the early 1990's.

The Michigan-US chapter of the Mars Society built a prototype(s) and concluded that the biggest problem with suitports was a loss of internal wall space. Other than that, no worries. For that reason, my novel uses suitports in a habitat but not the rovers... but in NASA's plans, the rovers pretty much ARE the habitat. Again, no worries.

Yes - best advantage - no dust contamination!!! There goes the biggest obstacle to lunar settlement, poof. Combine suitports with telerobotics and you're really cooking.

I think a more interesting question is: "why does this sound like a new, radical idea to so many people??" Or rephrased, are people in the UK (or US) really that far out of touch with the current state-of-the-art regarding human spaceflight? If so, it explains people like Alistair who are probably back thirty years in their thinking. Sure, this might all sound impossible if you don't know what's ALREADY BEING DONE! (deep sigh)

Give me a break, you Luddite Wanker!

"NASA has been thinking about sending small packages ahead of time that the landing mission could assemble."

What like the fake remains of the first moon landing? By Marcus Adams

Tell you want, Marcus- attach a laser of reasonable size to an earth based telescope of largish size, and point it at one of the lunar landing sites. Don't worry, you can find that data on the web if you bother to look. Shine a flash of laser light, wait a couple of seconds, and look through that same telescope. See that little flash of light winking back at you? That's the laser reflector that the astronauts who *didn't* land on the moon left behind, doing it's job. Works the same as it did the day they left it. Simple little device- five sided hunk of glass in a little case that just reflects light back in the direction it came from. I think every crew left the same damned thing behind, and you can run this little test on every landing site.

I'm dying to see if the Japanese lunar probe that just got launched will have a powerful enough camera to image some of the manned or unmanned landing sites to set this little nugget aside once and for all.