By Marlo Anderson – The Tech Ranch
Step outside the space station and space tries to kill you fast: no air, no pressure and wild temperatures. A spacesuit fixes every one of those problems at once.
A Spaceship You Wear
Space has no air to breathe and no air pressure. A spacesuit brings its own air, power and water, with the oxygen and life support in the backpack, and keeps an astronaut going for about 8 hours, plus a 30-minute backup.
Why Pressure Matters
With no pressure, the liquids in your body would start to boil. So the suit is pumped up like a balloon, to about 4.3 psi, less than a third of normal air pressure. The lower pressure keeps the suit bendy enough to work in.
Breathing Pure Oxygen
The suit is filled with 100% oxygen. Before a spacewalk, astronauts breathe pure oxygen for hours to flush nitrogen out of their blood. Skip it, and they could get the bends, just like scuba divers.
Too Hot and Too Cold
In sunlight it can hit about 250°F; in shadow, about minus 250°F. Up to 16 layers of material block the heat and cold, and cooling underwear carries water through about 300 feet of tubes.
The Golden Visor
The helmet visor has a thin coating of gold that works like sunglasses for space, bouncing back harsh sunlight and heat. In the shade, astronauts can raise it.
A Long Day Outside
Spacewalks often last several hours, so the suit carries water to sip. And yes, astronauts wear a special diaper, officially the Maximum Absorbency Garment. Tethers keep them from floating away.
Bonus Fact: Moon Suits by Prada
NASA’s next Moon suit, Axiom Space’s AxEMU, was unveiled in October 2024 and developed in partnership with Italian fashion house Prada.
More Space Travel, Explained
This is part of my Space Travel Explained series: big space questions, answered in plain English with simple animations. Watch the whole series on YouTube and subscribe to The Tech Ranch so you don’t miss the next one.
Found this helpful? Give the video a thumbs up on YouTube. Got a space question you’ve always wondered about? Ask it in the YouTube comments and it might be the next video.
