Forgotten hardware: how to urinate in a spacesuit

On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to fly in space. Although National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had discounted the need for him to urinate, Shepard did, in his spacesuit, short circuiting his electronic biosensors. With the development of the pressure suit needed for high-altitude and space flight during the 1950s, technicians had developed the means for urine collection. However, cultural mores, combined with a lack of interagency communication, and the technical difficulties of spaceflight made human waste collection a difficult task. Despite the difficulties, technicians at NASA created a successful urine collection device that John Glenn wore on the first Mercury orbital flight on February 20, 1962. With minor modifications, male astronauts used this system to collect urine until the Space Shuttle program. John Glenn's urine collection device is at the National Air and Space Museum and has been on view to the public since 1976.

The Soviet-Russian space suits a historical overview of the 1960's

The development of protective suits for space use started with the Vostok-suit SK-1, first used by Yu. Gagarin on April 12, 1961, and then used on all subsequent Vostok-flights. The technical background for the design of these suits was the work on full pressure protective suits for military pilots and stratospheric flights in the 1930's through 50's. The Soviet-Russian space programme contains a large number of 'firsts', and one of the most well known is the first EVA by Leonov in 1965. This event is also the starting point for a long series of space suit development for Extravehicular Activities over the last 35 years. The next step to come was the transfer in void space of crew members between the two spacecraft Soyuz 4 and 5 in 1969. As has later become known this was an essential element in the planned Soviet lunar exploration programme, which in itself required a new space suit. After the termination of the lunar programme in 1972, the space suit development concentrated on suits applicable to zero-gravity work around the manned space stations Salyut 6, Salyut 7 and MIR. These suits have become known as the ORLAN-family of suits, and an advanced version of this suit (ORLAN-M) will be used on the International Space Station together with the American EMU. This paper covers the space suit development in the Soviet Union in the 1960's and the experience used from the pre-space era.

The world's first practical flight pressure suit

The first practical flight pressure suit was developed in 1934 by Wiley Post of global flight fame. B.F. Goodrich Company assisted in the development. The final pressure suit used a liquid oxygen source and had arm and leg joints that permitted easy operation of the flight controls and also enabled walking to and from the aircraft. In his Lockheed Vega, the "Winnie May," Post set unofficial altitude records (as high as 50,000 ft), discovering the jet stream in the process. In March 1935, Post flew from Burbank, CA, to Cleveland, OH, in the stratosphere using the jet stream. At times, his ground speed exceeded 340 mph in a 179 mph aircraft. Post's pioneering accomplishments were the first major practical advance in pressurized flight.