US Spacesuits (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration)
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The authors will provide both the reader with an appreciation of spacesuits and US suit efforts, through development challenges to their role in space exploration. The text will explain how the routine use of clothing provides a link to the function of spacesuits and why spacesuits are far more than garments. They are a last refuge for survival in disaster or a personalized spacecraft that allows direct contact and interaction with everything beyond our world. Successfully meeting the challenges to creating safe, reliable and comfortable spacesuits is an ongoing effort that has spanned over four decades. The book will detail the technical evolution of U.S. spacesuits from their roots in high altitude aviation and vacuum tube development to the present day, with an additional look into the future. This primary source of spacesuit information will explain the function, historical development, and use of spacesuits from a worldwide perspective in a readable way. The story includes many technically and historically interesting efforts that never reached flight, and were either misunderstood or not widely reported.
About the Author
Kenneth Thomas’s and Joe McMann’s careers mirror the story of US spacesuit development. As a second generation space engineer, Ken Thomas grew up with the U.S. advanced aviation and space programs. Having worked as a task-manger/engineer on the Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU, NASA's current going-out-in-space suit-system) program and as principal investigator on next generational suit efforts, this background grew to in-depth experience. The experience was further supplemented by extensive personal research into spacesuit system developments. The result is a unique set of qualifications in the arena of spacesuit history. Joe McMann's career has spanned over 40 years in the area of spacecraft environmental control and space suit systems. He joined NASA during Project Mercury, and has participated in every United States manned space endeavor, including the assembly of the International Space Station. He has been a project engineer, Extravehicular Activity (EVA) suit life support system manager, vacuum chamber test subject, real-time flight support console engineer, and overall EVA hardware manager in NASA's EVA Project Office. Following his retirement from NASA in 1997, he joined Hamilton Sundstrand as a technical specialist in the area of failure analysis and resolution. He retired from Hamilton-Sundstrand in 2002, and acts as consultant to NASA and the aerospace industry. The authors, therefore, are unparalleled in their experience of US spacesuit development and have a unique set of photographs that will illustrate the book. This should make an excellent sister book to ABRAMOV/SKOOG: Russian Spacesuits which, since publication in June 2003, has sold 679 US and 209 ROW, total sales to date of 888.
US Spacesuits (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration),Kenneth S. Thomas,Harold J. McMann,Praxis,0387279199,Astronomy - General,Astrophysics & Space Science,Science,Science/Mathematics,Science / Astronomy
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