DID YOU KNOW? Spacesuits protect the body from extreme temperatures between 120 and -156 degrees Celsius
DID YOU KNOW? Spacesuits protect the body from extreme temperatures between 120 and -156 degrees Celsius
THE FIRST IN SPACE
DID YOU KNOW?
Neil Armstrong’s spacesuit was made by a bra manufacturer
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Yuri Gagarin was the first person to wear a suit in space in 1961. Called the SK-1, this spacesuit was centred around flexibility. To assist astronauts in their experiments, the suits incorporated materials such as latex in the undergarments, increasing the wearer’s range of movement. Christian Dior was the fashion designer who led this element of the suit. The spacesuit was bright orange for visibility purposes in the case of an emergency, but was not designed for spacewalks. Instead the suit was for wearing inside a spacecraft, and could keep Gagarin alive for five hours if the cabin’s air supply was lost. Another role of the bright-orange outer casing was to conceal the details of Gagarin’s suit from other designers. As the spacesuit was created during the Space Race, the details of the Soviet Union’s invention were hidden from other nations.
A futuristic concept called the SmartSuit includes self-healing skin
Did you know?
SUITSTHAT HAD ISSUES
1 VISOR
A thin layer of gold covers the spacesuit visor. This protects the astronaut’s eyes from the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation.
2 PRIMARY TANKS
In space, astronauts breathe 100 per cent oxygen instead of the 20 per cent they would breathe on Earth. This removes nitrogen from the body, which can form life-threatening bubbles when exposed to space’s low pressures.
3 SECONDARY TANKS