• Question: Who designed the first spacesuit ?

    Asked by shasow15 to Colm, Eoin, Joseph, Lauren, Stephen on 17 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Joseph Roche

      Joseph Roche answered on 17 Nov 2013:

      It seems like an American inventor called Wiley Post might have designed one of the first spacesuits in the 1930s… They have improved a lot since then, but there are still a couple of issues:

    • Photo: Eoin O Colgain

      Eoin O Colgain answered on 18 Nov 2013:

      Since the 1930’s onwards various groups were experimenting with high-altitude suits for balloon flights. Some of the technology was probably borrowed from (underwater) diving suits, which existed in some form from the 19th century.

    • Photo: Lauren Mc Keown

      Lauren Mc Keown answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      The first spacesuits were designed as “pressure suits” in the 1930’s and some front runners were Wiley Post and Russell Colley – who fitted Alan Shepard (America’s first man in space) for his flight in 1961! Space suits are designed to keep the internal pressure similar to that on Earth, to carry oxygen and to shield against harmful radiation when the astronaut is in space, unprotected by the Earth’s atmosphere.

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