Comfort of the LM

I would guess that being in the LM for more than a few hours was
pretty uncomfortable. Is that right? There were no seats or beds,
right? And of course it was crowded. What about the temperature?
Was it hot on one side and cold on the other? Can anyone speak about
the comfort of the LM?

In article ,
says...
I would guess that being in the LM for more than a few hours was
pretty uncomfortable. Is that right? There were no seats or beds,
right? And of course it was crowded. What about the temperature?
Was it hot on one side and cold on the other? Can anyone speak about
the comfort of the LM?

The LN probably wasn't all that uncomfortable, although it wasn't truly
comfortable, either. Like all spacecraft up to that point, both the LM
and the CSM had pretty small pressurized cabins -- when the crew was
suited up, neither allowed much room for moving around.

However, there were several factors that made these cabins more
comfortable than they might have been. Microgravity lets you use *all*
of the available space, and that opens up a lot of space for people to
inhabit. While the LM was on the Moon, of course, there was 1/6 gravity,
but the lack of seats wasn't that much of a hardship. The crews found
that your legs don't get all that tired when standing for long periods in
such a low gravity field.

While there were no seats in the LM, there were hammocks starting with
Apollo 12 for the crew to sleep in. The hammocks were arranged
perpendicular to each other, with the LMP sleeping crosswise and the CDR
sleeping above him, his feet pointing towards the control panel and
windows. This didn't allow good sleep on Apollos 12 and 14 because those
crews stayed in their suits the whole time, and the suits weren't all
that comfortable to sleep in. But for Apollos 15-17, the crews slept in
their long johns, and mostly got pretty good sleep.

As for temperature, the Apollo 11 crew got really chilly during their
rest period on the surface. The cabin was allowed to cool off, and once
it had the temps didn't come back up until the next day, during ascent
prep. Some fixes were made to both equipment and procedures to keep the
temperature in the cabin in a pretty steady low-70s (F) range, and cold
temperatures never bothered any of the later crews.

--
Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for | Doug Van Dorn
thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup. |

On Tue, 7 Oct 2003 01:41:35 -0700, Doug... for himself
wrote:

The LN probably wasn't all that uncomfortable, ...

Thanks for the reply.