Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 72 — page 89: what you’re looking at

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

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION temperatures are stood for long periods. But this built-in cooling system depends on a constant supply of. air to carry the heat away by con- vection. A man wearing a skin-tight space suit will not be able to cool himself natur- ally. He will get hot, he will perspire, and he will suffer and eventually die of heat prostration. Unless something is done about it. Something can be done and should prove to be quite practical. A hot man _ per- spires, so for comfort, if nothing else, that perspiration must be taken care of. It can be dried out of the air together with the water vapour from the breath, by chemicals in use today for dehydrating stored goods and manufactured articles. This same chemical is used to prevent moisture condensing in ‘‘moth-balled’’ battleships. But we want to keep the space suits simple and avoid various packages of chemicals, all of which get in the way and need attention. The answer, obviously, must lie in the design of the suit itself. 88 The solution is surprisingly simple. The spaceman, in or- der to breathe, must carry cylinders of compressed gases and in that he also carries his own air-conditioning equip- ment. Gas under pressure will cool rapidly when released, the only problem is to arrange some device whereby that physical property can be taken to advantage. It can _ be, merely by using the gas to flush out the suit. But a _ skin-tight suit is difficult to flush and difficult to put on. To be really effec- tive, it would have to be tailor-made to each individual and help would be required both to put on and take off the suit. Also, there is the possibility that space suits may have to be donned in a hurry and, remember, we have only about fifteen sec- onds to get equipped in case of a split hull, holed cabin or other emergency. Flexible suits, which are loose-fitting enough for rapid donning, are useless. The wearers may live, but they would be help- less to do other than wait for death. A man exposed to the void comicloooks.com) d