The stratonautical space suit (Spanish: Escafandra Estratonáutica) was a pressurised suit designed by Colonel Emilio Herrera in

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude Franco-Italian Agreement of 1935, an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * ...

to be worn during a

stratospheric The stratosphere () is the second layer of the atmosphere of the Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is an atmospheric layer composed of stratified temperature layers, with the warm layers of air hi ...

flight using an open basket

balloon A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light so ...

scheduled for the following year. It is considered one of the antecedents of the

space suit A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, ...

. The flight never took place due to the start of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. Herrera, a supporter of the Republican side, fled to France in 1939, where he died in exile in 1967. The suit, made of

vulcanized Vulcanization (British: Vulcanisation) is a range of processes for hardening rubbers. The term originally referred exclusively to the treatment of natural rubber with sulfur, which remains the most common practice. It has also grown to includ ...

silk, was cut and used to make raincoats for the troops. It would have been the first fully pressurized functional suit in history, although it was never worn in real conditions. The suit had a hermetic cover on the inside (tested in the bathroom of Herrera's apartment in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

), covered with an articulated metal frame with accordion-like folds. It had articulated parts for the shoulders, hips, elbows, knees, and fingers. The mobility of the suit was tested at the Cuatro Vientos experimental station, and according to Herrera it was "satisfactory". The suit was supplied with pure oxygen. Herrera designed a special carbon-free microphone to use inside the suit and avoid any possibility of

spontaneous ignition Spontaneous combustion or spontaneous ignition is a type of combustion which occurs by self-heating (increase in temperature due to exothermic internal reactions), followed by thermal runaway (self heating which rapidly accelerates to high tem ...

. The helmet visor used three layers of glass: one unbreakable, one with an ultraviolet filter, and an opaque infrared exterior. All three layers had an

anti-fog Anti-fog agents, also known as anti-fogging agents and treatments, are chemicals that prevent the condensation of water in the form of small droplets on a surface which resemble fog. Anti-fog treatments were first developed by NASA during Project G ...

treatment. Herrera included an electric heater in the suit, but during tests in a chamber simulating high altitudes it turned out that the suit was heated to 33 ° C while the temperature of the atmosphere around it dropped to -79 ° C. Herrera soon realized that the problem with a pressurized suit in a near-vacuum environment was actually removing excess heat produced by the human body.

External links

Escafandra Estratonautica

References

Spacesuits Spanish inventions {{Sci-hist-stub