Hello from the moon!
Have you ever dreamed of being an astronaut, blasting off into space? Find out about spacesuits by joining us for a song and dance all about getting dressed for a spacewalk on the moon. Come and get your moon moves on!
Astronauts need to wear specially designed items while doing extravehicular activity (EVA), otherwise known as a spacewalk. Space suits are made up of several different but very important parts. Moon boots are actually like pants with the shoes stuck on. There’s an inner suit called the ‘liquid cooling and ventilation garment’, which has almost 100m of narrow tubes throughout! Special vents in the suit also draw away the astronauts sweat and recycle it for the cooling system. The outer shell is made of lots of hard parts that fit together a bit like locking jigsaw pieces.
With the suit on you still need a few more items. The helmet protects you from extreme temperatures and tiny pieces of space junk (think about bugs hitting the car windscreen when you’re driving on the highway… ewwww)! The visor is also coated with a thin layer of gold to block harmful radiation from the Sun – space is a dangerous place! Under your helmet is your Communications Carrier Assembly (CCA), nicknamed the snoopy cap. It has earphones and microphones and connects to a radio. It’s really important, because it lets astronauts talk to their crew and hear important warning tones The Power Pack- officially known as the Primary Life Support Subsystem is like a very fancy backpack holding important stuff like oxygen tanks, a battery pack and the two-way radio. Now we are dressed and ready for our spacewalk!
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