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Comment by jlgreco | Hacker News Reader

Ever since Soyuz 11 depressurized after/while detaching from Salyut 1, everyone has used rescue suits during launch/landing. These rescue suits are not good for EVA as they don't provide the same mobility as EVA suits (better mobility while not in a vacuum, little to no mobility while in a vacuum), but they provide life support for limited amounts of time.

Radiation is really something you don't worry about until everybody is safely repressurized.

Edit: Chris Hadfield talks about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gaFXZWhp4k

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Do you think (or are) people would be required to wear these suits on commercialized flights?

As an aside, I wish I could be involved with anything dealing with space and exploration… it all just seems so fascinating and so much potential not only for economic development, but even to understand who we are in the context of what is or may be around us.

Why can't you?

I'm on a less than traditional path right now in life, and I'm not sure who I would even reach out to that would be in a position to listen and give me a chance. But I'm trying, but probably not in the most direct way… and I guess pg said it best himself: "If you want to take on a problem as big as the ones I've discussed, don't make a direct frontal attack on it"

I don't know who would be in charge of doing the requiring (perhaps FCC [edit: err... FAA] with American companies / launches from America?), but I can't imagine that anybody would be willing to not use pressure suits during the risky portions of missions. Soyuz 11 was really bad.. nobody is keen on repeating it.

Thankfully I think that safety is something that economic pressure will address really well with commercial spaceflight. High-profile accidents didn't sink either the American or Russian national space programs but I think that at least in the foreseeable future commercial outfits will feel a lot more vulnerable . A high profile deadly accident for SpaceX would be devastating for them; at least moreso than an accident for a government agency with some strategic military purpose partially behind it. I expect commercial spaceflight companies to take safety at least as seriously as government agencies (at least while they are still in their infancy. Once SpaceX becomes the real-life "Union Aerospace Corporation" that might change. ;))

Yes, okay maybe not on holiday jaunts. Before you can board a helicopter to an offshore platform and have to don a survival suit. With the risk of the helicopter flight being so high it is not really something complained about.

I think we can draw a lot of parallels between helicopter flights to offshore platforms and a shuttle into space.

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