September 14, 2006

Paul Webb designed a pressurized space suit in the 1960s that has a chance of being used for NASA’s upcoming expeditions to the moon. Webb will be interviewed online on Sunday, Sept. 17, from 3–4:30 p.m., at www.thespaceshow.com.

By Virgil Hervey

As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) gears up for a return to the moon and beyond, 40 years of work on spacesuit design by local scientist Paul Webb is finally beginning to get recognition.

This Sunday, Sept. 17, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., Webb will be interviewed on “The Space Show,” a streaming audio, radio-type show over the Internet. Webb will talk about his work on the spacesuit and then listeners may ask questions via e-mail, chat, or an 800 telephone number. Listeners can pick the interview up live at www.thespaceshow.com, or listen later by downloading the Webcast from the show’s archives.

Webb is a medical doctor who never practiced medicine per se, but instead chose to do physiological research. In 1954 he moved to Yellow Springs to work in the aeromedical lab at Wright Field. He stayed for only four years, because he didn’t like working for the government, he said. Soon he started Webb Associates, in Yellow Springs, doing consulting and research in physiology of all kinds.

In the mid ’60s Webb did consulting work for the people who designed the spacesuit for the Apollo program, helping them with what turned out to be the winning proposal. However, Webb was never happy with the standard spacesuit, he said, because it was too bulky and too dangerous. He thought there must be a better way. So he devised a different kind of spacesuit, which he called the Space Activity Suit (SAS).

The April 1968 Journal of Aerospace Medicine published a paper by Webb on his innovative suit. In his article he described it as “a complete leotard of elastic cloth, covering fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs, and torso.” Interviewed recently at his home, he said, “It is like a spandex body suit, but much more powerful in terms of the pressure it applies.”

The helmet used with the suit is not much different from what would be used with the standard spacesuit. However, pure oxygen is supplied to the helmet at a pressure necessary to work with the high-pressure suit. Instead of applying pressure by filling an area between suit and the body, he said, the pressure is supplied from within the body itself and is counteracted by the pressure from the body suit.

Breathing pressure (both blood and lung pressure) is increased, thereby increasing the pressure of the body cavity in the vacuum of outer space to equal the pressure supplied by the suit, such that, if the suit were not being worn, the blood pressure would measure much higher than what is considered normal at sea level. Wearing the suit in outer space, an astronaut’s blood pressure would appear to be normal.

At these higher breathing pressures, without the high-pressure suit to counteract the effects, the blood would not return to the heart, but would pool in the extremities. According to Webb, the pressure of the suit forces the blood to return. “It restores the normal balance of pressure,” he said.

In the late ’60s, Webb actually constructed a prototype suit in his lab on Woodrow Street and tested it in an altitude chamber at an air pressure equal to 80,000 feet, which, according to Webb, is close to the vacuum of space. These experiments provided the data for his paper.

In November 1971, NASA published a 139-page report describing Webb’s work and provided funding for a short time. His ideas had found support from the NASA office in Washington in the ’60s, but they were met with disbelief at NASA in Houston in the early ’70s.

“They said it wouldn’t work and put it on the shelf,” he said. Webb always thought it was simply a matter of “not invented here.”

“They had the big suits that worked, so they were not interested in a new suit, especially something as nutty as this,” Webb said. For the next 29 years, the only interest his project received was the occasional call from a science fiction writer or graduate student.

In late 1999 an aerospace company, Honeywell (formerly Allied Signal), called, interested in his idea. Company reps gathered together a group of physiologists and textile engineers and convinced NASA to give them a little money to study “the physiological effects of mechanical counter pressure,” Webb said.

After three years, however, NASA decided not to go forward. There would be no funding for a new spacesuit. As a consequence, Honeywell has abandoned the full spacesuit for now. However, they are still interested in Webb’s technology for use in gloves and arm and leg wear.

Recently, President Bush made a speech about returning to the moon and a manned expedition to Mars. According to Webb, NASA jumped on the opportunity and started rearranging their budget priorities for what they call the “Constellation Program,” including a contract to Lockheed to design a “Crew Exploration Vehicle” (CEV), the Orion.

NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) recently announced that it “may issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the design, development, certification, production, and sustaining engineering of a space suit system to meet the needs of the Constellation Program,” and called for industry assistance in planning for the RFP. After 40 years, Webb finally thinks his idea has a chance.

He said that his suit would be lighter, more mobile and more effective than the traditional one in many different ways. The older model suits weigh 300 pounds compared to the 80 pounds of his suit. The older suit also takes up much more space, and size and weight will be critical in the new, smaller exploration vehicle.

Safetywise, Webb said, his suit has it all over the one in use today. The older model is subject to punctures, is likely to get stuck in tight places, is virtually impossible to climb in, and, if the astronaut falls down, he needs a buddy to help him get up. According to Webb, a tear or puncture in his suit would have virtually no physiological consequences.

According to Webb, NASA at Houston has lost his prototype suit. A while back, Wright State University asked for anything he could give them for their archives. All that was left were some swatches of the material used in the body suit, and Wright State has them now.

Webb’s original lab was in the apartments on Woodrow Street. For the last 10 years of its existence, Webb Associates was housed in a building at YSI. Webb retired in 1983, but continues to do consulting work and help with research projects from his home.

“I help them to get the job,” he said. “Then I consult and get to play in the lab.” His most recent work has been on a “human calorimeter,” a device that measures body heat loss, work that arose from his research on spacesuits.