On 4/10/2010 4:59 PM, Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Been meaning to reply. Google research on skinsuits.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_activity_suit

The problem I can see with that concept is keeping the temperature right.
Whereas keeping the pressure right inside the suit would be pretty easy,
making something that thin that wouldn't conduct the heat or cold of the
exterior environment to the person wearing it wouldn't be easy at all.
In the Apollo suits not only did you have the problem of getting rid of
the body heat of the astronauts into a vacuum, like a thermos bottle's
ability to hold in heat, but the solar irradiation meant that the
exterior of the suit was over the boiling temperature of water.
Mars would be better in this regard, but unless you were in the depths
of the Hellas Basin at noon in summer it would be difficult to keep the
whole body at the same temperature without some means of circulating
body heat throughout the whole suit.
God help you if you went out in the Martian night wearing something like
that with no temperature-balancing ability throughout the whole suit, as
although the total amount of calories generated by body heat could be
easily enough to keep one warm - with proper insulation in the near
vacuum of the Martian atmosphere - getting it to your arms and legs
without some form of heat transfer throughout the whole skin-tight suit
other than blood circulation would leave your extremities frostbitten in
a matter of a few minutes.

Pat