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spacesuit, environmental suits in SciFi

Interested that so few costume designers make helmets with good visibility - both for the actor, the character and the audience. Is it because in the real world, helmets have a face plate and the rest is opaque and so they think audiences wouldn't buy it? I just think from a real world point of view, visibility would be enhanced if more of the helmet was transparent - ie for the characters. The audience would be able to see the actors better, too. Just a thought.

On a similar note, there is a conceite with almost all space suits shown in sci-fi that bugs me. In almost every depiction the interior of the helmet has a bright light mounted to show the actor's face. In reality this would make it very difficult to see outside the suit due to the glare of the light on the inside of the faceplate.

like trying to see out the window of a well lit room at night.

If they did it the right way then you couldn't see the actor's face, know who they are, or see the expressions on their faces. You would be losing a lot to gain a little realism.
 
I could live with that touch of realism. They could add a more realistic touch by using external markings to tell them apart. If done right it could even add to the scene by not seeing the faces. They could also use the method Iron Man did and show what's going on inside the helmet.
 
Has there been an example of a skinsuit used in live-actor sci-fi TV or movies? (A skinsuit uses the elastic tension of fabric rather than gas to apply pressure to the body.) I think skinsuits are fairly common in anime but I can't recall an example offhand.

Freeman Lowell's spacesuit from "Silent Running" (1972) was a form-fitting skinsuit.
 
I could live with that touch of realism. They could add a more realistic touch by using external markings to tell them apart. If done right it could even add to the scene by not seeing the faces. They could also use the method Iron Man did and show what's going on inside the helmet.

Space Cowboys actually handled it well too. But those seem to be the exceptions.
 
Interested that so few costume designers make helmets with good visibility - both for the actor, the character and the audience. Is it because in the real world, helmets have a face plate and the rest is opaque and so they think audiences wouldn't buy it? I just think from a real world point of view, visibility would be enhanced if more of the helmet was transparent - ie for the characters. The audience would be able to see the actors better, too. Just a thought.

On a similar note, there is a conceite with almost all space suits shown in sci-fi that bugs me. In almost every depiction the interior of the helmet has a bright light mounted to show the actor's face. In reality this would make it very difficult to see outside the suit due to the glare of the light on the inside of the faceplate.

like trying to see out the window of a well lit room at night.

The spacesuits in Space:1999 didn't have lights inside the helmets and the visors had an orange tint to them (though I think the helmets at least were recycled props from UFO).
 
^ I love the Space 1999 space suits. They were the first to come to mind when I read the thread title. Who couldn't love those in-your-face orange and yellow ensembles! :lol:
 
There have beena lot of great screen designs and some not so hot. The major drawback in many cases is the lack of pressurization. The suits often have a sag to them. Look at the moon mission photos and you will see the astronaut's suits are taught due to the 5 psi of inside air pressure pushing out against the vaccum of space.

Ironically MIT is working on a new mechanical compression suit that looks alot like a neoprene divers suit. Since it uses mechanical compression instead of a trapped atmosphere, a rip is not necessarily fatal. yo can move in them more easily as well.

I went around pricing prop space suits for and indie I am trying to make at the basic helmet with torso piece ran between $4000-$8000 per unit. This did not include $9000 to set up mold for the more expensive suit.

I have fiberglassed 2 designs myself and itis a major leasgue chore.
 
Unfortunately, Obama is pulling the plug on the moon. Guess these suits won't see production, certainly not the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) lunar version.
 
I have a space suit question for the more technically-minded folks here.

It doesn't deal with any of the suits shown so far, but is more of a general sci-fi question [this comes up in novels and short stories].

Do space suit power packs lose waste heat out into the environment outside the suit? Even if it's just for something as basic as an exterior light source?

Because if they do, in an environment like on, say, Titan, whatever point or points on the suit was radiating any kind of heat would be the hottest thing in the area by a couple of hundred degrees K. And most of what's in the general vicinity would probably flip over from being a solid or liquid into being a gas based on the input of any waste heat at all [liquid methane and such]. So if you use a space suit in that kind of environment, wouldn't you basically just create your own little mini-hurricane?
 
Hmmm, it would be a small point source of heat relatively speaking. I would guess it would take on the appearance of a plume rising from the spacesuit. Think of hot gases rising from a hot spring on earth with maybe some localized "heat wave" visual distortions around the spacesuit thrown in.
 
Space suits do leak out a little bit of thermal energy, but it is minimal - It has to be, otherwise if the suit isn't insulated really well the astronaut will freeze (or heat) very quickly.
 
I have a space suit question for the more technically-minded folks here.

It doesn't deal with any of the suits shown so far, but is more of a general sci-fi question [this comes up in novels and short stories].

Do space suit power packs lose waste heat out into the environment outside the suit? Even if it's just for something as basic as an exterior light source?

Because if they do, in an environment like on, say, Titan, whatever point or points on the suit was radiating any kind of heat would be the hottest thing in the area by a couple of hundred degrees K. And most of what's in the general vicinity would probably flip over from being a solid or liquid into being a gas based on the input of any waste heat at all [liquid methane and such]. So if you use a space suit in that kind of environment, wouldn't you basically just create your own little mini-hurricane?

Since Titan has an atmosphere thicker than Earth's you wouldn't really need a full spacesuit, just something really warm/insulated with a scuba arrangement.
 
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