Neil Armstrong walked clumsy for the moon because of the manufacturer of fasteners Playtex
Research suggests that an astronaut in a suit could run at 10 kilometers per hour on the lunar surface. The primitive apparel of the Apollo 11 mission was developed by International Latex Corporation, also dedicated to women's underwear
TO PRINT
The manufacturer of fasteners Playtex developed the space suit with which Neil Armstrong stepped for the first time on the Moon on July 20, 1969. The engineers of the company, International Latex Corporation, which also produced high-tech garments for the US Armed Forces , they did what they could so that Armstrong could withstand temperatures of minus 170 degrees below zero and not get scorched by ultraviolet radiation, but they could not prevent the first human being who walked in another world from being forced to walk in ridiculous ways.
Fortunately for the ego of humanity, popular belief attributes the awkward movements of Armstrong to the low gravity on the Moon, but the reality is less epic. The costume of the astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission was not designed to walk, explains John De Witt, an expert in biomechanics at Wyle, a company that collaborates in the aerospace projects of the US Government. Armstrong's clothing was a 21-layer mammoth of synthetic fibers, neoprene and metal, which made that "little step for man", but "giant step for humanity", tremendously rough.
"The space suits used by the astronauts of the Apollo mission really did not allow for an adequate range of movements in the hips and walking normally was difficult. For this reason, the astronauts took advantage of the reduced gravity to advance jumping and striding across the surface of the Moon ", explains the engineer. Faced with the fear of lunar dust that could block the mechanism, NASA and the International Latex Corporation sacrificed the bearings that would have facilitated the movement of the hip.
Like on a roller coaster
De Witt is now working with NASA to improve the costumes of future lunar explorers and astronauts who, according to forecasts, will step on an asteroid in the 2020s and on Mars in the 2030s. describes himself as "a motivated person who enjoys increasing knowledge about how people move". His last experiment has consisted of recruiting eight people to ride them on a DC-9 plane of the US space agency, upload them to heights of 10,000 meters, drop the ship as on a roller coaster and, taking advantage of the decrease in gravity for 20 seconds , put the human guinea pigs to jog on a treadmill in conditions similar to those of the Moon. It is the first time that the possible limit speed on the satellite has been studied.
The results show that future Neil Armstrongs will be able to move at higher speeds than previously thought. The theoretical calculations of the experts predicted that a person on the Moon could walk at a speed of almost three kilometers per hour, from which he would have to run to overcome the effects of low lunar gravity. However, the De Witt volunteers came to walk at about five kilometers per hour.
In parallel trials, reducing the weight of runners with suspension mechanisms as if they were puppets, speeds of more than 10 kilometers per hour were reached, a normal jog rhythm on our planet. "Although it might be possible to go faster, maintaining this type of speed would require improvements in the ability of suits to remove heat," a challenge that NASA engineers are still facing without success. "This heat can force an activity to end prematurely due to fatigue," says De Witt.
Golf sticks
The authors of the study, published in the specialized journal The Journal of Experimental Biology, attributed this unexpected speed to the forces generated by the swing of arms and legs, insignificant in our planet before the force of gravity that pushes us towards the ground , but perceptible on the Moon. "There they contribute more to gravity, keeping you stuck to the ground," he clarifies. On Earth, the engineer illustrates, the effect can be seen more when a ball is hit with a golf club.
"The main difference between what we saw with the astronauts of the Apollo mission and what we will see with future lunar explorers is that jumping will not be the main form of locomotion, because the suits will facilitate adequate mobility of the hip to allow a normal pace ", Adventure De Witt.
The engineer, however, applauds the pioneering work of International Latex Corporation by making Neil Armstrong's suit and the rest of the Apollo mission, "at a time when the main objective was simple