Space Suit safety equipment?

"Tater Schuld" wrote in message
...

yeah, but tourniquets never worked well, and have been discouraged by
most(if not all) medical officals.

Technically they work all TOO well. That's the problem. If you properly
apply one, you've written off everything below it and most likely need to
amputate.

"Greg D. Moore (Strider)" wrote in message
link.net...

"Tater Schuld" wrote in message
...

yeah, but tourniquets never worked well, and have been discouraged by
most(if not all) medical officals.

Technically they work all TOO well. That's the problem. If you properly
apply one, you've written off everything below it and most likely need to
amputate.

agreed, better to just use the roll of duct tape that is standard equipment
for suits to patch the hole

On Tue, 07 Feb 2006 14:16:38 +0000, Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:


"Tater Schuld" wrote in message
...

yeah, but tourniquets never worked well, and have been discouraged by
most(if not all) medical officals.

Technically they work all TOO well. That's the problem. If you
properly apply one, you've written off everything below it and most
likely need to amputate.

And technically, there are two issues.

1) Cutting off the oxygen flow out of the wounded suit.

2) Cutting off the blood flow out of the wounded limb.

The first one being the most important.

The US suit already has an emergency oxygen supply that automatically
kicks in when the pressure drops below a certain value. Seems to me the
best way to activate the atmospheric tourniquets would be to have an
automated system. If the pressure continued to drop below a second lower
value, some of the replenishment flow is routed to the limb tourniquets.

It would be easiest to design the uninflated limb tourniquets into the
cooling garment, as it is already around the astronaut and inside the air
bladder and pressure hull. So the cooling garment would have one more
connection to the tourniquet bladders, as well as the cooling water.

Four of five bladders per limb, that automatically inflate when the
pressure drop is critical, creating air dams to all the none critical
areas of the suit. But still allowing blood flow and movement. Giving the
astronaut the best chance for survival and getting back to the air lock.
Manual activation would probably be a good idea too.

I wouldn't think taping the outer layer of the suit would do much good, as
the oxygen would flow around the tape in the many layers between it and
the air bladder/pressure hull.

--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @

Craig Fink writes:

"Craig Fink" wrote in message
news
If an astronaut gets hit in the foot by a micrometer, does he:

1) Inflate the emergency tourniquet to cut off leakage from the foot?

or,

2) Use the few seconds he has left to say goodbye to his family?


or,

3) Call out, "Hey! Someone lost a micrometer. Gotta be more careful
with a tool, fool!"