Great News from my Spacesuit manufacturers, the first of a new generation of space suits is now ready for me. The custom made, bespoke suit has passed all it's test.
I spent a day in the USA fitting and testing the suit at an American company that makes spacesuits for the NASA space station.
The suit itself has been prototyped, designed and manufactured by one of Russia's most experienced and prolific spacesuit engineers for almost 20 years. Following on from my trip to Moscow to try on the suit and check it for suitability for the jump, a new shell has been designed specifically for this purpose in an amazing teaming up of spacesuit expertise from across the globe.
One of the major challenges for me has been sourcing a full pressure space suit.
There is technically an argument for jumping in a partial pressure G suit, but the risks would be unacceptably high. Above 64,000 feet the liquid in the cells of the human body will try to boil (vaporisation), causing the body and it's organs to swell. This would cause loss of consciousness and death in seconds.
The safest, most responsible way to mitigate this danger is a full pressure spacesuit designed specifically for this purpose.
We also spent some time testing a good position for me in the gondola with the parachute on. My parachute manufacturers are actually designing a custom rig for this jump, based on the one I'm wearing here, the CPS Sigma tandem rig.
The measurements we took are now being implemented by the gondola and balloon designer and manufacturer in the USA. A semi seated position like this is the favourite at this time.
As the life support system team continue working on this essential piece of equipment, I will need to decide on whether to use the Mig pilot's helmet (te white one), or the custom made spacesuit (orange) helmet with the large visor. Once this is done we'll test it in a hypobaric chamber.
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