A Failed Prototype: The Hamster Ball Spacesuit [Spacesuit]

Space suits are insanely cool. Except this one. This prototype hamster ball suit was designed by engineers at John Hopkins and in reality presented to NASA in 1964. The engineers claimed astronauts can be more mobile with this thing on.

I’m not kidding, this bubbleboy thing was real and it was called the Spherical Experiment #1 (SX-1):

The large, transparent sphere was designed to present astronauts the last word in mobility as they rambled on the lunar surface. The prototype even featured a mini airlock for transporting samples inside and outside of the sector.

More seriously though, NOVA has gathered a sweet gallery of old-fashioned spacesuits from Project Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and the spacesuits ancestors dating back to 1918. a fabulous take a look at the history of space travel. [ NOVA via Neatorama ]

Source

This post is tagged: experiment 1, history of space travel, john hopkins, lunar surface, project mercury, sweet gallery, transparent sphere