Environment suit design for ultra-cold temperatures

What would be the design of a near-future extreme-cold environment suit?

Consider a protective suit that is not a space suit because it doesn't need to augment the pressure felt by the body. It does, however, need to protect against extreme cold. While the lack of pressurization makes a lot of things easier, the existence of an external atmosphere also means heat can be lost easily as the outside air touches the suit.

I figure the basic coverall will have no problem being more than insulating enough, using existing aerogel cloth.

Aside: when I first learned about aerogel cloth, I thought it would be awesome to make a pair of kitchen oven mitts that would be truly worthy "” pick up a roast right from the oven (normal gloves will only last a few seconds; or worse due to the grease getting wicked up) and go straight to liquid nitrogen handling without any problem. But the smallest quantity I could find cost a thousand dollars. Now, I just did a search on Google for aerogel fabric insulation and one of the featured shopping links is \$19.00 on eBay (\$4/square foot). The product specs say you get R30.9 with a three-inch covering. In fact, here is a jacket that claims to withstand −321°F on the outside while the inside stayed at 89°.

I figure some kind of snowshoe or tall block under the foot will keep them safe against extended contact with the cold ground.

But I'm wondering about the helmet. A clear globe would not be made of a super-insulating material. Can it?

Should they have a clear globe as a secondary cover, and still wear a hat and breathing mask, as opposed to filling the globe with warm breathable air?

The use case is Antarctic winter as a prototype for a design that could work on Titan.

What design would you foresee for such a suit?

For reference

South pole: temperature −52°C 7 feet above the ground; ground contact temp. can be as low as −92°C. Pressure is 0.65 atmosphere.

Titan: −180°C. Pressure is 1.45 atmosphere.

posted almost 7 years ago

JDługosz‭

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