Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 87: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION a steel cylinder weighing 22 Ibs. So a man could carry a generous supply of oxygen for twenty-four hours without undue inconvenience. But tests have shown that healthy men, breathing ninety per cent. pure oxygen at normal pressure for periods of more than seven hours, have come down with a form of pneumonia. Whether this same lung-irritation will con- tinue when breathing pure oxygen at lower pressures is not known. But it seems reasonable to assume that oxygen, in its pure state, is not to be breathed for long periods. Still, we’re only carrying ' 25 Ibs. of oxygen and cylin- der, and could afford to carry another of nitrogen to dilute the oxygen by fifty per cent. But that puts the pressure up to 6 lbs. if we are to get the same amount of oxygen. And 6 lbs. of internal pressure still gives. us over 800 Ibs. pressure on each foot of suit. Not so good. Fortunately, there is a way out. Pressure is pressure and it needn’t be air pressure. There is no real need to have a layer of air over the entire body and, if we want mobility, we can’t have it. The same effect can be obtained by using the fabric of the suit itself to supply the needed pressure around the limbs and body. The head does not matter; the helmet can be rigid and filled with air. What is needed is an elastic suit which will constrict around the limbs and torso. We have our pressure and we have our mobility. The prob- lem is solved—almost. It would be solved if we could ignore the fact that a man, like any other organism, cannot live in his own waste. As space suits will be worn for more or less short periods, we can confine our worries to disposing of exhaled carbon dioxide and heat. Disposing of the carbon dioxide is easy. If we want to conserve our air and use it in a closed cycle we can make use of sodium peroxide to absorb the un- wanted gas. But as we can easily carry more oxygen than we really need, a better way would be merely to expel the used air into space. Heat, the . second waste product of the 86 comiclbooks.corn