Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsb!dsmith
From: dsmith@hplabsb.UUCP (David Smith)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle fashions
Message-ID: <4897@hplabsb.UUCP>
Date: 13 Sep 88 06:11:23 GMT
References: <1256@ncspm.ncsu.edu> <4277@pdn.UUCP> <1262@ncspm.ncsu.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 28

In article <1262@ncspm.ncsu.edu>, jay@ncspm.ncsu.edu (Jay C. Smith) writes:
> Hey, I did see blue full- or partial-pressure suits while the STS-26 crew was 
> in training.  On CBS' "48 Hours" report on the shuttle program there was one 
> clip that showed the shuttle crew walking down a hallway to the simulator for 
> a full-blown rehearsal -- and were wearing blue pressure suits, not flight 
> suits or coveralls.  I can tell the difference.

OK, you were referring to STS-26.  I had thought you were referring to 5
through 25.  Since your original posting, AW&ST ran a picture of the STS-26
crew in the cockpit with the dark blue partial pressure suits on.

> On silver being "in" during the Mercury program:  was white in during Gemini
> and Apollo, or was that just the natural color of the suits?  Seems like they
> would have been orange for the same reason I presume the shuttle ones are --
> ease in spotting during rescue operations.  I thought it was funny that they
> had to add those red bands to one of the EVA suits for Apollo.  NASA went
> against the science fiction creators when they didn't use different color
> suits on each astronaut.

I suppose they were white for thermal control -- the suits had to have
cooling systems, after all.  (But where were the radiators, or why were
they white?)  Red bands were the low-thermal-impact way of telling
Neil from Buzz.
-- 

			David Smith
			HP Labs
			dsmith@hplabs.hp.com