Working in a Vacuum & zero gravity

[Gapster]

Having seen plenty of 'vacuum in a tube' tests on youtube I am wondering how a human can work in such an environment. I'm trying to understand how a space suit can be tested before it is used 'live' in space, and how seemingly 'everyday' materials are used to protect astronauts from the harsh environment.

Is the vacuum in space as 'intense' as a vacuum in a laboratory?
What pressure would be in a space suit to protect the wearer?
What pressure(s) would a vacuum have on a suit in space compared to an underwater training environment?
What kind of seals would there likely be on the helmet?

 

[davenn]

I'm trying to understand how a space suit can be tested before it is used 'live' in space,

air pressured leak tests

What pressure would be in a space suit to protect the wearer?
What pressure(s) would a vacuum have on a suit in space compared to an underwater training environment?
What kind of seals would there likely be on the helmet?

what searching have you done so far ?
I'm sure there would be info on NASA or other space sites that would give answers to most of this

What pressure(s) would a vacuum have on a suit in space compared to an underwater training environment?

well, they would be opposite for a start

 

[sophiecentaur]

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/altitude-chamber-tests
Just look at the date on that! It's been going on for a long time.

 

[ZapperZ]

Having seen plenty of 'vacuum in a tube' tests on youtube I am wondering how a human can work in such an environment. I'm trying to understand how a space suit can be tested before it is used 'live' in space, and how seemingly 'everyday' materials are used to protect astronauts from the harsh environment.

Is the vacuum in space as 'intense' as a vacuum in a laboratory?
What pressure would be in a space suit to protect the wearer?
What pressure(s) would a vacuum have on a suit in space compared to an underwater training environment?
What kind of seals would there likely be on the helmet?

In terms of structural integrity of something, once one get from the viscous regime into the molecular vacuum regime, it no longer makes significant difference on how low the pressure gets in testing stuff. So we can easily test structural integrity in vacuum of 10^-3 Torr and this will allows us to know that the structure will also hold up at lower pressures.

Maintain seals is a different issue. It also depends on what you are sealing against, because in terms of space suits where you are making sure there is always a positive pressure inside the suits, the seal isn't as stringent as, say, a vacuum chamber that needs to make sure there is as few contaminants as possible and having to maintain 10^-11 Torr of pressure. In the latter, even the outgassing from the walls of the chamber is an issue, which is not a problem for space suits.

So while most people think that trying to seal a space suit must be difficult, in terms of the technique alone, what we do on Earth for the vacuum requirement in condensed matter/material science research experiments can be significantly more demanding that those space suits.

Zz.