Perlan 2 Project Updates

[[email protected]]

Construction progress files and some great past photos of Steve
Fosset.


michael
---------------------------------------------------------



http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=7169

[bildan]

On Feb 15, 10:30*am, wrote:
> Construction progress files and some great past photos of Steve
> Fosset.
>
> michael
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?autocom=downloads&showfile=7169

Maybe, it isn't necessary to build a pressurized glider. MIT's Prof.
Dava Newman has a space suit that should work in an unpressurized
glider cockpit. Just add low Reynolds Number wings

See: http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit/index.html

[noel.wade]

I've had the pleasure of speaking with Einar Enevoldson (the man
behind the Perlan Project), and watching his presentations on the
subject.

They used pressure suits during Phase 1 (when they went to 50,000+
feet in a highly modified DG-505).

It turns out that the suits caused all kinds of problems - not the
least of which was controllability; since the pressure suits inflate
with altitude, and that crowds the stick between one's legs (they had
some near-mishaps when pressure suits would malfunction and suddenly
inflate fully - locking the control stick in one position). Plus, the
power and pressurized gasses required for the suits added a bunch of
weight and bulk to the aircraft - and gliders aren't known for their
baggage areas!

In the end, it was determined that a pressurized double-hull (a la
SpaceShipOne) was the way to go. And Einar has flown all kinds of
experimental aircraft over a long career that spans the globe - he's
done the research and has the experience! If you ever get a chance to
see him speak, you should - he's a very engaging person and has plenty
of great stories.
(side note: Speaking of SpaceShipOne, Einar flew a highly modified
Schweizer that could descend in a similar manner to the "feathering"
that SSO does... coincidence?)

Take care,

--Noel

[bildan]

On Feb 15, 2:33*pm, "noel.wade" > wrote:
> I've had the pleasure of speaking with Einar Enevoldson (the man
> behind the Perlan Project), and watching his presentations on the
> subject.
>
> They used pressure suits during Phase 1 (when they went to 50,000+
> feet in a highly modified DG-505).
>
> It turns out that the suits caused all kinds of problems - not the
> least of which was controllability; since the pressure suits inflate
> with altitude, and that crowds the stick between one's legs (they had
> some near-mishaps when pressure suits would malfunction and suddenly
> inflate fully - locking the control stick in one position). *Plus, the
> power and pressurized gasses required for the suits added a bunch of
> weight and bulk to the aircraft - and gliders aren't known for their
> baggage areas!
>
> In the end, it was determined that a pressurized double-hull (a la
> SpaceShipOne) was the way to go. *And Einar has flown all kinds of
> experimental aircraft over a long career that spans the globe - he's
> done the research and has the experience! *If you ever get a chance to
> see him speak, you should - he's a very engaging person and has plenty
> of great stories.
> (side note: Speaking of SpaceShipOne, Einar flew a highly modified
> Schweizer that could descend in a similar manner to the "feathering"
> that SSO does... coincidence?)
>
> Take care,
>
> --Noel

I've also heard Einar Enevoldson talk about Perlan.

That's exactly why Dr. Newman developed the Bio-Suit. It doesn't
inflate - or stiffen so it shouldn't interfere with the controls like
the suits Steve and Einar used. Please read the MIT article.

[Bob Kuykendall]

On Feb 15, 1:44*pm, bildan > wrote:

> That's exactly why Dr. Newman developed the *Bio-Suit...

Looks to me much more like "is developing" rather than "developed.".
According to that Web page, all they have so far is ideas, mockups,
and a few partial prototypes. It does not look like the sort of thing
I would rely on as a primary life support system for a 12-hour profile
anytime in the near future.

Thanks, Bob K.

[bildan]

On Feb 15, 4:57*pm, Bob Kuykendall > wrote:
> On Feb 15, 1:44*pm, bildan > wrote:
>
> > That's exactly why Dr. Newman developed the *Bio-Suit...
>
> Looks to me much more like "is developing" rather than "developed.".
> According to that Web page, all they have so far is ideas, mockups,
> and a few partial prototypes. It does not look like the sort of thing
> I would rely on as a primary life support system for a 12-hour profile
> anytime in the near future.
>
> Thanks, Bob K.

The literature from 4 years ago says Dr. Newman has personally tested
her suit at 95% of space vacuum.

[Andreas Maurer]

On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:21:59 -0800 (PST), bildan >
wrote:


>The literature from 4 years ago says Dr. Newman has personally tested
>her suit at 95% of space vacuum.

Well... a pressure suit is not something you want to test in an
enviroment where its failure means inevitable death...


Bye
Andreas

[bildan]

On Feb 16, 9:17*am, Andreas Maurer > wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:21:59 -0800 (PST), bildan >
> wrote:
>
> >The literature from 4 years ago says Dr. Newman has personally tested
> >her suit at 95% of space vacuum.
>
> Well... *a pressure suit is not something you want to test in an
> enviroment where its failure means inevitable death...
>
> Bye
> Andreas

All pressure suits undergo extensive testing without a human inside
but sooner or later, someone has to put it on and test it in a
vacuum. I'm sure MIT is not careless. The Bio-Suit project is well
funded and peer reviewed.

Explosive decompression to hard vacuum is something that has been
deliberately tested on large primates and by accident on a few
humans. The subject will survive a minute or so and, if pressure and
oxygen are restored within that time, will fully recover. It IS an
injury accident, and something to avoid at all costs, but not
necessarily fatal or even disabling.

Citations:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970603.html

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/atmosphere/q0291.shtml

It's true the Bio-Suit hasn't been tested in flight but neither has a
pressurized glider cockpit at altitudes above that which has been
achieved without pressurization. It's not clear to me which will be
the better solution for flights above FL 500.

[sisu1a]

> It's true the Bio-Suit hasn't been tested in flight but neither has a
> pressurized glider cockpit at altitudes above that which has been
> achieved without pressurization. *It's not clear to me which will be
> the better solution for flights above FL 500.

I bet the pressurized cockpit is waaay cheaper than bleeding edge
spacesuits... but the suits are pretty darn neat, and will probably
cost a lot less to maintain/operate then a normal pressure suit in
addition to the obvious mobility advantages. The x-crossed mesh bits
of it remind me of the Predator (scifi alien)...

Does this mean the future is here? I also saw practical (1/2hr
duration...) jetpacks are now only a couple hundred grand, inc
training...

-Paul

[bildan]

On Feb 16, 12:00*pm, sisu1a > wrote:
> > It's true the Bio-Suit hasn't been tested in flight but neither has a
> > pressurized glider cockpit at altitudes above that which has been
> > achieved without pressurization. *It's not clear to me which will be
> > the better solution for flights above FL 500.
>
> I bet the pressurized cockpit is waaay cheaper than bleeding edge
> spacesuits... *but the suits are pretty darn neat, and will probably
> cost a lot less to maintain/operate then a normal pressure suit in
> addition to the obvious mobility advantages. The x-crossed mesh bits
> of it remind me of the Predator (scifi alien)...
>
> Does this mean the future is here? I also saw practical (1/2hr
> duration...) jetpacks are now only a couple hundred grand, inc
> training...
>
> -Paul

No doubt the Bio-Suit would be extremely expensive - though possibly
no more so than mainstream suits. However, it's exactly the radical
kind of idea that is very hard to sell to conservative NASA engineers.

If I were with the Perlan Project, or someone who wanted to compete
with them, I'd approach the MIT Bio-Suit team to ask if they thought a
high-profile FL900 altitude record sailplane flight might help sell
their idea to NASA. They might be interested.

Note that the pressure atFL900 feet is about 0.25 PSI and the pressure
at FL400 feet is 2.72 PSI so if you were willing to breathe pure O2 at
a suit altitude of 40,000', the suit pressure differential need only
be 2.2 PSI.

Finally, even with a pressurized cockpit, wearing a pressure suit
backup makes a lot of sense.

[Martin Gregorie[_4_]]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:00:48 -0800, sisu1a wrote:

>
> Does this mean the future is here? I also saw practical (1/2hr
> duration...) jetpacks are now only a couple hundred grand, inc
> training...
>
I think so! Who has read Larry Niven's "The Patchwork Girl"? Just add a
baggy shell suit type outer layer and you're there!


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

[Andreas Maurer]

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:54:24 -0800 (PST), bildan >
wrote:

>All pressure suits undergo extensive testing without a human inside
>but sooner or later, someone has to put it on and test it in a
>vacuum. I'm sure MIT is not careless. The Bio-Suit project is well
>funded and peer reviewed.

Indeed... but experience shows that things go wrong with prototypes.
If such a suit fails at FL 350+, the pilot is dead if he doesn't have
a pressure cabin... I knew extrenely few pilots who willingly choose
to do without redundancy.

There's a good cause why any application of a pressure cabin up to
Rutan's Spaceship One relied on a pressure cabin with a pressure suit
(or, in the case of the XB-70, a second pressure cabin shell around
the pilot's seat) as backup system.


>Explosive decompression to hard vacuum is something that has been
>deliberately tested on large primates and by accident on a few
>humans. The subject will survive a minute or so and, if pressure and
>oxygen are restored within that time, will fully recover. It IS an
>injury accident, and something to avoid at all costs, but not
>necessarily fatal or even disabling.

Even if the pilot survived the first minute in near-vacuum:
The problem is that it is going to take a lot longer to reach a denser
athmosphere, even if you manage to bail out.

[Dan G]

On 17 Feb, 13:45, Andreas Maurer > wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:54:24 -0800 (PST), bildan >
> wrote:
>
> >All pressure suits undergo extensive testing without a human inside
> >but sooner or later, someone has to put it on and test it in a
> >vacuum. *I'm sure MIT is not careless. *The Bio-Suit project is well
> >funded and peer reviewed.
>
> Indeed... but experience shows that things go wrong with prototypes.
> If such a suit fails at FL 350+, the pilot is dead if he doesn't have
> a pressure cabin... I knew extrenely few pilots who willingly choose
> to do without redundancy.
>
> There's a good cause why any application of a pressure cabin up to
> Rutan's *Spaceship One relied on a pressure cabin with a pressure suit
> (or, in the case of the XB-70, a second pressure cabin shell *around
> the pilot's seat) as backup system.

As has been said I would think some kind of novel, lightweight, glider-
borne pressure cabin would be at least as likely to fail as the MIT-
developed and tested suit. However even if either/both failed as long
as the crew are getting pressurised oxygen to breathe they'd survive a
decompression, no? Humans don't pop in a vacuum (though bits might
swell up, re Kittenger) so consciousness might be maintained long
enough for a descent from high-level. Goodness how long that would
take in a glider though -- hours? I guess you'd have to bail out...

BTW though as I understand it the MIT suit works by applying
mechanical pressure rather than inflation, so there's not a lot to
fail in the first place.


Dan

[Bob Kuykendall]

On Feb 19, 3:23*am, Dan G > wrote:

> As has been said I would think some kind of novel, lightweight, glider-
> borne pressure cabin would be at least as likely to fail as the MIT-
> developed and tested suit...

I suppose that's so. The art, science, and technology of pressure
vessel design and fabrication is quite mature, literally centuries
old. Of course, the pressure vessel containment failure at Rutan's
Scaled Composites a couple years ago that killed two or three people
shows that there is still something to be learned as we extend
composite construction into ksi pressures. But down around the 8.5 psi
pressure level like Perlan will use and like SpaceShip One and Global
Flyer have already applied, there's a pretty well-established
technology for making composite pressure hulls and securing the
viewing ports and hatches that it takes to make them useable.

As an aside, it's interesting to see that the Perlan guys are looking
for 8.5 psi pressures. As another poster points out, you can get away
with a lot less pressure if your pilots breathe 100% O2 in accordance
with the law of partial pressures. Since air is about 1/5 oxygen, at
100% oxygen you can achieve the same partial pressure of O2 across the
semipermeable membranes of the alveoli with 15/5 = ~3psi as you would
get at sea level under normal circumstances.

Of course, the lessons of Apollo 1 inform us that 100% oxygen can be a
real fire hazard, especially at sea level pressures and when mixed
with various machinery and its lubricants and also a bunch of
electronics. One solution to that issue is the one they used with the
X-15 program: They filled the pressure suits with 100% O2 to a few
psi, and then pressurized the cabin with nitrogen to the same
pressure, resulting in a limp pressure suit and a non-flammable cabin
atmosphere. That's the solution I think I might have chosen for a
similar mission profile to that of Perlan.

Based on their 8.5psi cabin pressure, I'm guessing that what they have
planned is to pressurize the cabin with regular air (20% O2, 80% N2,
or maybe a bit richer) to 8.5psi, which replicates the environment
you'd see down around 10,000 or 12,000 feet. They'll put the crew in
David Clark 1030-series suits pressured up to the same 8.5psi as the
cabin, and feed supplemental oxygen into the helmet enclosure to get
blood oxygen saturation up to what you'd see at sea level. The suits
will be limp and relatively easy to wear except in the case of cabin
pressure failure.

> BTW though as I understand it the MIT suit works by applying
> mechanical pressure rather than inflation, so there's not a lot to
> fail in the first place.

True enough. But when I estimated mission profiles for a Perlan-type
program, it looked like you'd want to allow for a flight time of up to
12 hours. I'm not sure how the MIT suit works, but if its based on
mechanical pressure I can imagine that it might be quite fatiguing
after a few hours. Adding into the equation the work required to fly a
rather heavy 20-meter glider with unpowered controls probably makes it
a lot worse pretty fast.

Thanks, Bob K.
www.hpaircraft.com

[Bruce Hoult]

On Feb 20, 5:55*am, Bob Kuykendall > wrote:
> I suppose that's so. The art, science, and technology of pressure
> vessel design and fabrication is quite mature, literally centuries
> old. Of course, the pressure vessel containment failure at Rutan's
> Scaled Composites a couple years ago that killed two or three people
> shows that there is still something to be learned as we extend
> composite construction into ksi pressures.

Building a tank that holds pressure is one thing, building one that is
shrapnel resistant is something else.