Spacesuits

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 37. Chapters: American spacesuits, Soviet and Russian spacesuits, Space suit components, Apollo/Skylab A7L, Sokol space suit, Space activity suit, Extravehicular Mobility Unit, Gemini space suit, Orlan space suit, Navy Mark IV, Advanced Crew Escape Suit, Constellation Space Suit, Suitport, Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment, Launch Entry Suit, Primary Life Support System, Carbon dioxide scrubber, Krechet-94, I-Suit, Feitian space suit, Mark III, Strizh, Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment, SK-1 spacesuit, Yastreb, Hard Upper Torso, Berkut spacesuit, Maximum Absorbency Garment, Shuttle Ejection Escape Suit. Excerpt: The A7L Apollo & Skylab spacesuit is the primary pressure suit worn by NASA astronauts for Project Apollo, the three manned Skylab flights, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project between 1968 and the termination of the Apollo program in 1975. The "A7L" designation is used by NASA as the seventh Apollo spacesuit designed and built by ILC Dover. The A7L is a design evolution of ILC's A5L and A6L. The A5L was the initial design. The A6L introduced the integrated thermal and micrometeroid cover layer. After the AS-204 spacecraft fire, the suit was upgraded to be fire-resistant and given the designation A7L. Neil Armstrong described his Apollo 11 A7L space suit as "tough, reliable and almost cuddly." A7L without outer-layerThe basic design of the A7L suit 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. Metal rings at the neck and forearms allowed for the connection of the pressure gloves and the famous Apollo "fishbowl helmet" (adopted by NASA as it allowed an unrestricted view, as well as eliminating the need for a visor seal required in the Mercury and Gemini & Apollo "Block I" spacesuit helmets). A "cover layer," which was designed to be fireproof after the AS-204 fire, was attached to the pressure garment assembly and was removable for repairs and inspection. All A7L suits featured a vertical zipper that went from the shoulder assembly of the suit down to the crotch for entering and exiting the suit. Between Apollos 7 and 14, the two lunar module astronauts, the Commander (CDR) and Lunar Module pilot (LMP), had Torso Limb Suit Assemblies (TSLA) with six life support connections placed in two parallel columns on the chest. The 4 lower connectors passed oxygen, an electrical headset/b