The Sci-fi Spacesuit Discussion Thread

DazzlerFan

DazzlerFan

Sr Member
I love spacesuits. I suspect many of you do as well.

This year, as a way to give back to the RPF community, I thought that I would once a week post in this thread a sci-fi spacesuit from film or television (or maybe some other sources). Current stuff, old stuff, really old stuff – it’s all game so long as it’s a spacesuit.

I’ll share my thoughts on what I like and dislike, but more importantly, the RPF community can talk about the selected suit and what they think - memories attached to the suit, design aspects you like or dislike, insight into how it was produced, show off a replica, or post an interesting image you might have of the suit. Any discussion is encouraged.

Hopefully we can share in our collective spacesuit appreciation. Who knows, maybe you’ll see some spacesuits you’ve never encountered before (or forgot about). I have a rather large mental list of suits I’d love for us to discuss, so maybe if I have extra time, I can slip in more than one a week sometimes. Regardless, I’m targeting Tuesday nights (EST) to add the weekly new suit.

Let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to hang out once a week with friends and chat about spacesuits? Plus, after a while, I think this thread might be a great reference for some neat (and maybe not so neat) spacesuits.

I’ve been thinking about doing a thread like this for a while as a way of supporting the RPF community via fun discussion. This really is the best board on the internet. I’m proud to be a part of this awesome group of people. I wish I produced more stuff worth showing on here.

With that, let’s get started…
 
Spacesuit #1: Outland (1981)

Outland01.jpg

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I think these suits showed up in yellow, dark blue, and white in the film. Oh, and maybe red or orange – it’s a dark movie I can’t make out some of the colors.

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Somehow, I wasn’t aware of this movie until rather recently. I came across some pages from the comic book version of the movie while researching the influence of Wally Wood and that sent me on a path to pick up this film. I enjoyed watching it. Not an amazing film, but still was fun to watch.

I’m a backpack guy. I love packs that are greebled, yet look functional. The packs in this movie really hit the sweet spot for me. It really is one of my favorite spacesuit backpack designs.

The harness looks functional and gives some lines that are not horizontal or vertical. A climbing harness might have given it a little extra detail.

Bravo for the yellow suits! Yellow is my favorite color and I don’t see enough yellow spacesuits in media.

Oh, I have a love/hate relationship with spacesuit hoses. I love the look of them, but I hate that they aren’t really practical. I mean, if they are for oxygen, you would probably have them inside your suit instead of outside. From a design perspective, though, inside the suit is so boring.

As for the negatives, I can’t get past these helmets. It looks like they are wearing Pac-Man on their heads. The straight-on views of them are especially off-putting to me. Add to that what looks like a string of Christmas tree lights around the opening (I know they are not) and I just can’t get behind the helmet. I think that in sci-fi there is a fine line on the size of the helmet. For me, this helmet goes past the line and then some.
 
I’m not sure if I ever saw it, but this now forces me to it! I love me some good illuminated-visor helmet sci fi but as always this is def for the audience and (of course lol) wouldn’t obscure the astronaut‘s view. It sure does look cool though! Yes some big Alien vibes going on.
 
Having built space suits for film (couple hundred) and built real suits for NASA and the commercial space industry, I have a hard time getting past some movie suit designs. Most of the time there is a total misunderstanding of how a real spacesuits works and why they are designed a certain way.
Yes, I know its a movie, but most of these tropes eventually go away as people get more educated to how real things work. Just look at some old Sci-Fi movies were say, atomic power was depicted. the science and depictions of how it "worked" were goofy and cartoonish. But, as atomic power was developed and actually in use, the public became more aware of how it works, and then the depiction in movies becomes more realistic.
Movie spacesuits have started in this direction of improvement, as we seem more video of humans in space. (Which I am very excited to see) But there is still a huge misunderstanding most of the time, on how real suits work, and why they need to be built a certain way, to do the job they need to. Movie suits are often depicted with unrealistic design and unrealistic physics.

The "Outland" suit is one of them. Here are my observations.

Lights in the helmet- As pointed out, if there is a light in your helmet, it will reflect on the inside of the visor, making it difficult or impossible to see out. The lights in these helmets look like a Vegas billboard from the 60's. I find it interesting that before "Alien", movie spacesuits didn't have lights in the helmet, illuminating the actor, and back then, film wasn't as sensitive, and lighting was more difficult. Now with modern cameras, it shouldn't be an issue to see the actors face. But every spacesuit project I have worked on, the subject of internal helmet lights comes up. Sometimes I convince them they don't want lights in the helmet.

Giant helmets - Real suits don't want a huge helmet, you want the helmet as close to the head as possible. This reduces the pure oxygen volume around the head, makes airflow more efficient and adds to visibility. The only reason the Apollo helmets look big is because of the visor assembly over the pressure bubble. There seems to be this need in Hollywood to see all of the actors face. Like, if part of his face was obscured, you wouldn't know who it was, or perhaps the studio thinks they are paying for the actor by the square inches of face, so anything covered up, means they are wasting money. (Super hero films must use different formula)

Soft looking suits - Real suits need to be pressurized (usually between 3.5 and 8 psi) Now while this seems low, it makes the structure layer of the suit very stiff. I have come out of a real suit with bruises from the hardness of the fabric under pressure. Wrinkles in the outer cover are fine, as the outer most layer of EVA suits is a separate, laced on thermal layer, cut larger than the pressurized suit. So it doesn't come under tension.
However, this is a tough thing to simulate on a film. Real pressurizable suits are too expensive and difficult to use for a film. We have used a few alternative methods for this and had some good results. Space Cowboys we used inflatable bladders the fit between the actor and the costume. These were pressurized to .3 psi, about the same as a party balloon. This system, we also used on "For all Mankind", along with padded suits and inflated suits worn under the costume.

Exploding astronauts - This is one of the biggest cartoon things. Humans are covered with a very tough "leather" bag, and we are very tough. Since liquids can't expand, and the only air volume we have is lungs and some gasses in the digestive tract. So, if exposed to vacuum, the worse that would happen (still pretty bad) is you would projectile vomit from both ends. Oh, and your blood would boil. This sound extreme, but when you boil water (212f. or 100c) this is because of the atmospheric pressure on the liquid that is compressing the gas into the water. So to drive that gas out, you need to increase the energy (heat) or decrease the pressure. Like opening a champagne bottle, once the pressure inside the bottle is decreased, the dissolved co2 gas comes out of solution and form's bubbles. Equally. if you lower the pressure around water, it will eventually, boil at "room temperature". I thinks is at around 50,000 ft, water boils at 95 degrees f. which is 3.6 degrees below your body temperature. Jack Mays was exposed to vacuum while testing an Apollo suit in a vacuum chamber and suffered no long term effects. He said the last thing he remembers before passing out, was the saliva on his tongue boiling.

Gravity and weightlessness - This is so abused, that few films, get it right. Even modern ones like "Gravity" get it all wrong.
 
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lmgill said:
Having built space suits for film (couple hundred) and built real suits for NASA and the commercial space industry, I have a hard time getting past some movie suit designs.
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That is awesome. Now I’m curious if any suits on my list you worked on. If so, that’s going to be an extra fun discussion.

lmgill said:
Soft looking suits - Real suits need to be pressurized (usually between 3.5 and 8 psi) Now while this seems low, it makes the structure layer of the suit very stiff. I have come out of a real suit with bruises from the hardness of the fabric under pressure. Wrinkles in the outer cover are fine, as the outer most layer of EVA suits is a separate, laced on thermal layer, cut larger than the pressurized suit. So it doesn't come under tension.
However, this is a tough thing to simulate on a film. Real pressurizable suits are too expensive and difficult to use for a film. We have used a few alternative methods for this and had some good results. Space Cowboys we used inflatable bladders the fit between the actor and the costume. These were pressurized to .3 psi, about the same as a party balloon. This system, we also used on "For all Mankind", along with padded suits and inflated suits worn under the costume.
Click to expand...
That’s something that bothers me in older sci-fi films - when the suits look like cloth or sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Thanks for the explanation, that makes a lot of sense about the pressurization. It also explains why I have trouble finding material to make a spacesuit jumpsuit that looks realistic.

Wow! If nothing else, I’ve learned some things already. :)

Leinads said:
I’m not sure if I ever saw it, but this now forces me to it! I love me some good illuminated-visor helmet sci fi but as always this is def for the audience and (of course lol) wouldn’t obscure the astronaut‘s view. It sure does look cool though! Yes some big Alien vibes going on.
Click to expand...
You’ll have to let us know what you think of the film once you watch it. It’s either Aliens without the Alien or as joberg said it’s High Noon in space.
 
The Disney suit was, if not directly, inspired by early pressure suits like the 1940's XH-5 Strata suit, that had what was known as tomato worm convolutes. These show up in many early sci-fi films, Like "Destination Moon". This film may also have inspired the Disney suit.

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The second picture was an early JPL suit concept for the moon. It has some interesting ideas, but not very practical. There were others with the same idea. One advantage, is you can remove your arms from the suit and work inside the suit.
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The Martian - Looks nice, overall look is not distracting, worked for the film.
But, mechanical counter pressure suits (MCP) or "Squeeze suits" have been a dream concept for years. (See Webb Space Activity suit) This idea has been given new inspiration by Dava Newman's Biosuit project. Which by the way, was never a real suit. They never had a working prototype.
The issue with these suits is there are too many physiological side effects / issues to make them a practical idea.
First, fit. They have to be custom made for each wearer, and they do not allow the skin to breath. You also need to apply sufficient pressure to the whole body, or blood will pool in any area not under sufficient pressure. Air pressure suits, apply pressure evenly because air is a fluid, and therefore flows everywhere evenly. An MPC suit needs to apply pressure to "hollow" areas like armpits and palms of the hand. Also, hair follicles originate from a tiny pit in the skin, and these areas cannot be "squeezed" so as a result blood pools in these tiny depressions and get what look like pox. Also, I don't know if any testing has been done for the long term effects of this or tight physical contact with the skin over long periods.
Side note on this film, when the hab blows up, and he patches it with Visqueen and duct tape, I could almost buy it, because of the way he fabricated it. BUT, when the hab gets repressurized, this would be as taunt as a drum head, and would not flap in the Martian wind. Which is another huge issue, the Martian atmosphere is so thin, a hurricane level even, would feel like a strong breeze on earth. So the whole premise of how he gets stranded is bogus. Even the author of the book admitted he really cheated that.
Again, Huge helmet, not very practical. I was in Budapest for some filming, as we supplied the ACES suits, for the return to Mars scene, and I talked with the costume designer. She told me Ridley loves big helmets. (just look at any of his space films) I have no clue why a helmet would need to extend so far above the wearers head. Also, of it's a MPC suit, why would you need a rigid torso? Takes up way too much volume when stored and has little function.

2001 - Love these suits as well . We have built a couple of replicas of these for various projects. (Most recently Gucci's Kubrick project) I had considered building a functional version of the suit. As in fully pressurizable.


Prometheus - Huge goofy helmets and MPC suits. Stupid film.

Moon - Ok design. Nothing special, but looks practical. Helmet needed a sun visor though. You would get a serious sun burn in only a few minutes if exposed to the direct sunlight.

Mission to Mars - Dumb film. Bad physics. Dumb suit design. Hoses going to back of helmet, suit details for the sake of adding detail. Nothing looks functional on these suits, They look to me like costumes. Controls on the suits too small to be used and not in line of sight. (Like tiny switches and indicator lights on the lower back of the PLSS (back pack) Zippers exposed and on the chest like that makes it very difficult to get into the suit, unless the helmet disconnect can be unhooked from the suit.

Tin Tin - Strata suit influence again.

Interstellar - Ok suits. Hoses to back of the helmet impractical. Nice helmet design though. We thought we would be building these suits, but it was decided they would build them in-house with their costume department. They had a number of problems with these suits on set. Spacesuits are not simple to make, even movie ones.

Alien - ehh. They seem more like attack dog training suits to me.

Star Trek - Interesting design. Given the era, and the need to make them seem very futuristic, I like that they don't look like any other spacesuit concept.

Battlestar - Terrible design. Again, details for the sake of details. Helmet looks like it weighs 50 pounds.

Outland - already discussed.

Firefly / Serenity - This is the only one in this group we made. These armoured spacesuits were originally made for the Kurt Russell film, "Soldier". For a quick flashback scene. Built quickly and pretty cheaply.
They were then rented to the TV series with the original helmet, and on a later episode, they wanted a different helmet design. (pictured) The idea of the helmet was the fabric in the back was so the whole front of the helmet could be opened and pivoted back, and the fabric section would collapse. As an example, the Russian Sokol suit uses an all fabric helmet, other than the faceplate. The helmet lights were designed to look "added on" in the style of many of the shows equipment. The chest box is an upside-down Apollo RCU.

Sunshine - Like the design, but I cant say it's all that realistic. There would be better ways to protect an astronaut in this scenario, but the design does a good job for the film.
 
DazzlerFan said:
That is awesome. Now I’m curious if any suits on my list you worked on. If so, that’s going to be an extra fun discussion.


That’s something that bothers me in older sci-fi films - when the suits look like cloth or sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Thanks for the explanation, that makes a lot of sense about the pressurization. It also explains why I have trouble finding material to make a spacesuit jumpsuit that looks realistic.

Wow! If nothing else, I’ve learned some things already. :)


You’ll have to let us know what you think of the film once you watch it. It’s either Aliens without the Alien or as joberg said it’s High Noon in space.
Click to expand...
Re: Outland suit

About 5 minutes into the film I realized that I had indeed seen it back in high school. It has a few excellent moments and it’s obvious where the money was spent and squandered but that’s for another forum.
The suits are as mentioned previously, the typical B-grade (for bubble-head) Alien knockoff. It probably passed in ‘81 riding on coattails, but even now this seems to be a difficult design for entertainment to dismiss.
We’ve forever wanted to paint an ideal that living and working in space will be this safe and equivalent extension of earth, even to the point of portraying astronauts in their very own personal “space-station-in-a-suit.” Come on man! There needs to be an established and standardized helmet to suit ratio. LOL
 
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The colored suits in "Destination Moon" are protective coveralls for the silver pressure suit, only seen in the beginning of the movie. There were two types of suits in "Moon Zero Two", a space suit, and a moon suit, but both use backpacks that plug into the back of the suit, no hoses. I like the TOS suits, and the screens were not a bad idea, the problem were the ripples in the screening. I also like the suits and helmets in "Planet of the Vampires", which were modified motorcycle clothing. The helmets were probably modified motorcycle helmets, it was a very low budget movie.

The designer of the "Outland" suits said that they are suppose to look like mass produced industrial space suits, safe but inexpensive.

David.
 
Spacesuit #2: Doctor Who – Frontier in Space Episode 4 (1973)
DoctorWho001.jpg

DoctorWho002.jpg

DoctorWho003.jpg

DoctorWho004.jpg


The Third Doctor stole this spacesuit from the Master’s spaceship in an attempt to commandeer the craft.

--

One of my goals is to pick a wide variety of spacesuits from various times and properties. While younger viewers may think of the orange Nu-Who suits, I thought it might be fun to take a look at this number worn by the Third Doctor.

My first thought is this suit looks like the lovechild of Doctor Who and Bender from Futurama.

That helmet has a neat utilitarian look to it – my assumption is because it actually was some type of pressurized helmet. It sure looks heavy, though – like wearing a metal skillet on and around your head.

The suit definitely takes influence from fantasy artwork earlier in the century. It almost seems to pull from a stripped-down version of the Destination Moon suits.

The gantlets, neck seal, and boot covers don’t really do it for me. I think that’s more an issue of the budget of the show, though.

The backpack looks utilitarian, but not that interesting or impressive. At least the backpack is more than just two tanks.

All in all, for only a very few scenes in a single episode of a six-part serial, this suit is fine, but nothing to write home about. Certainly, it doesn’t make me take more than two looks at it.

I read somewhere that these suits were used earlier in a Doctor Who episode, but I can’t remember where. There was something about the helmets not coming down very far on the actor’s face, so the high padding was added around the neck to fill in the gaps.
 
DazzlerFan said:
Spacesuit #2: Doctor Who – Frontier in Space Episode 4 (1973)
View attachment 1656946
View attachment 1656947
View attachment 1656948
View attachment 1656950

The Third Doctor stole this spacesuit from the Master’s spaceship in an attempt to commandeer the craft.

--

One of my goals is to pick a wide variety of spacesuits from various times and properties. While younger viewers may think of the orange Nu-Who suits, I thought it might be fun to take a look at this number worn by the Third Doctor.

My first thought is this suit looks like the lovechild of Doctor Who and Bender from Futurama.

That helmet has a neat utilitarian look to it – my assumption is because it actually was some type of pressurized helmet. It sure looks heavy, though – like wearing a metal skillet on and around your head.

The suit definitely takes influence from fantasy artwork earlier in the century. It almost seems to pull from a stripped-down version of the Destination Moon suits.

The gantlets, neck seal, and boot covers don’t really do it for me. I think that’s more an issue of the budget of the show, though.

The backpack looks utilitarian, but not that interesting or impressive. At least the backpack is more than just two tanks.

All in all, for only a very few scenes in a single episode of a six-part serial, this suit is fine, but nothing to write home about. Certainly, it doesn’t make me take more than two looks at it.

I read somewhere that these suits were used earlier in a Doctor Who episode, but I can’t remember where. There was something about the helmets not coming down very far on the actor’s face, so the high padding was added around the neck to fill in the gaps.
Click to expand...
Doctor Who and Futurama - yup that’s spot-on! To me this has a 1920-30’s diving suit aesthetic especially with the faceplate, respirator mouthpiece and tanks. Might be okay fishing-out golfballs from the local 9’s pond, not so much in space though.
 
The issue with so many of these suits is a desire to make obvious the underlying mechanics. Today’s audience is much more savvy having lived through several generations of actual space-flight technologies and demands more realistic portrayals. Pumps, pipes, straps, motors, etc. are elements of all spacesuits, but we wouldn’t necessarily see these. A simple protective outer-layer would score points with Fire, Life, Safety
 

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