Building an A7l replica Apollo Moon Suit

The committee members will meet with administration officials Friday and will report that there is no realistic way to get Americans back on the moon by the target date of 2020, which has been the agency’s goal since President George W. Bush signed off on the “Vision for Space Exploration” in 2004. Landing on the moon by 2020 would require such drastic budgetary maneuvers as de-orbiting the International Space Station — crashing it into the South Pacific — in 2016.

The “program of record” — NASA’s current strategy — has not fared well in the committee’s review. Former astronaut Sally Ride, a member of the panel, said the gap between NASA’s goals and its current budget totals roughly $50 billion by 2020. If the space station’s life is extended for five years, she said, the current budget would allow for the completion of a heavy-boost moon rocket only in 2028, and that would be without spending money on developing the components of a lunar base.

So I guess we will just continue to “wallow around” in low orbit for the next few decades.

Let the ESA handle the money pit we call ISS. I think we have wasted more than our share of money on that lumbering contraption.

And we definitely need a replacement for that death-tap shuttle. Astronauts are supposed to be explorers, not truck drivers. And this truck has a bad habit of killing people, half a dozen at a time.

If NASA doesn’t have the budget to get to the moon, then increase it! That’s the way to stimulate the economy, get all the aerospace contractors back to work and hiring people!

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I wanted to see how difficult it is to drill the bubble for the feed port. So I took out the prototype bubble I have, marked it and modified the drill bit as instructed by the plastics company. And proceeded to drill it to receive the port. My beautiful wife Dawn was kind enough to hold the bubble, making it much easier to drill.

Here are photos of the end result. I have the headrest/vent duct propped in the back, so if the angle of that part looks a little off, that is why.

This is the basic configuration of the helmets I will be making, with the following exceptions: The ring at the base will be anodized, as will the feed port. The vent-duct/headrest will have a pad and be painted the correct color. And of course mounted to the helmet. And the Bubble will not be distorted, but rather perfect all around.

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Here are some photos of one of the gas connectors with the brass lock and lock-lock tabs inplace. These will be removed before anodizing. Pretty huh?

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As my good friend and partner on this project, Johan, pointed out: when you look inside the L.S. connectors on most replica suits, all you see is the fabric the suit is made from.  Well, after looking down many LS connectors, we decided that was a detail we had to have.

This is what I came up with to represent the O2 plenum as seen from the connector side.

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I am told the Apollo hardware was polished before being anodized. This seems to get missed on most of the replicas I have seen. But in keeping with my desire to “Get it right” here is one of the suit-side helmet rings partly polished and almost ready for anodizing.

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I picked up the first finished set of helmet rings today. I could not be happier!  The guys at Craig brothers Machine shop have exceeded my highest hopes. The clasp and rings are…. well, perfect. I can’t wait to get them anodized and the bubbles mounted on them.

In several of the photos below you will see the replica compaired to the real thing. An exact match I’d say.

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Just incase you have been living under a rock and haven’t heard, we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the flight of Apollo 11.

So lets remember the three Americans who made the incredible first voyage from the Earth to the Moon.  And let us not forget the hundreds of thousands of people it took to get them there.

Flying machines made from materials that did not even exist when Kennedy issued his challenge, less than a decade before.  Donning suits made by a company that, up until winning the NASA contract, had made only bras and girdles. (That’s why the A7L closes in the back.)  The crew of Apollo 11 set out to make history.

All the equipment was built to tolerances never before attempted…of materials not even dreamed of just a few years before.

Since we focus on the moon suits here, lets look at the wonderful “personal spacecraft” that was the A7l, and some of the innovations that went into it.

For instance: the white outer layer that is so familiar to us, Called the “Integrated thermal meteor garment” or ITMG.  Is topped with a fantastic fabric decades ahead of its time called Beta-Cloth. This flexible, extremely tough and fireproof fabric was, (and is) used to cover and protect the fragile inner layers of the suit. It’s made of fiberglass cloth coated with teflon and silicone. It can stop a bullet if several layers are used, and it is unaffected by temperatures up to 550 C.

Topping the suit is a seamless bubble helmet, made from a new plastic called Lexthan (Plexiglas). Covering this while outside the craft is a visor assembly that uses the same plastic, only coated with 24 K gold. An attempt to reflect radiation away from the astronaut.

Beneath the white Beta Cloth are several alternating layers of Kapton foil and insulation. Beneath this lies the pressure garment assembly, or PGA.

The PGA is an ingenious configuration of latex coated fabrics with convolutes at key areas of movement such as the hips, knees and elbows. Fabric restraints and cables keep everything in shape when inflated. This makes the A7L strong yet flexible.

Inside the PGA is a special garment that looks like “fishnet long johns” that has hundreds of feet of plastic tubing sewn into it. This is the PCG or “personal cooling garment” Water flowing through the tubes carries the excess heat from the astronauts body away, keeping him (or her) cool.

On the back hangs a marvel of engineering called the Portable Life support System or PLSS. This contains Oxygen, carbon dioxide scrubbers, water for cooling and the communications equipment.

All these things, all these systems had to be invented and tested and built in less than ten years.

These are the reasons I marvel at the Apollo A7l, and try to honor the people that worked so hard make it work so well.

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I got busy last weekend and built a small loft in my shop. Storage is always a problem in a small shop, so I decided to go Up to solve the problem. This had some unexpected advantages. Since I set the bottom at the same height as my door, its now 7 foot or roughly 2 meters. This lowered the shop light I had in that area. The added light and proximity to the window seemed like the ideal place for my lathe.

After living with the new arrangement for a while, I think it’s the only spot in my shop for my lathe to live. The loft separates the area from the metal roof that gets quite hot in the summers with the sun beating down on it.

So here are some photos of my new lathe area, and small loft.

The part on the lathe is the last of 4 suit-side glove disconnects.

Apolloman asks ” how do you know the dimensions of the parts?”

I had access to some original parts that I made castings of. I use my castings as a guide.

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Here are some photos I took at the machine shop that is making the Helmet rings for me. They are as obsessed with details as I am. When compaired to the originals, they are exact reproductions. Getting very close to having the worlds best reproductions of the Apollo pressure helmet. I was lucky to find such skilled and talented people as Craig Brothers Machine Co. Inc. And practically in my back yard!  Now if you read my blog, you know I dont normally do endorsements. But Craig Brothers Machine Co. Inc are the best there is. So if you are around the central Ohio aera, and need this kind of work done. Call 740-756-9280

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