Backpack Through the LM Door

[jrkeller]

For those of us who are regular posters and readers, one topic that comes up frequently is a statement something like, the EVA backpack can't fit through the door. James Colliers said he measured the openning and compared it to the dimensions of the LM hanging from the ceiling in Space Center Houston. The vehicle hanging from the ceiling is actually a training unit, known as LTA-8 (sometimes it appears as LTA-8A).

I recently found this tidbit, which states that the backpack actually fits through the LTA-8 door and was tested.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a15/a15.trv1prep.html

Go to 121:19:36 and read Jim Irwins Comments

Actually here it is,

[Irwin - "Oh yeah. We had the tanks. I'm wondering if we ever did any ingress training at one-sixth g. I don't think we did. I was just surprised that I had such difficulty, because I'd done a lot of practice in one g with the backpack on because, originally, in the LTA-8 tests - for the thermal vacuum chamber - they were going to use the PLSS under one-g conditions. You know, climb the ladder and go through the hatch, just like we do on the Moon. I'd done that several times and had no difficulty. But you wouldn't have any difficulty in one g because the weight of the PLSS on your back so great and the suit, itself, (also) compresses."]

[freddo]

This needs to be tacked up somewhere! This is even a bigger sledgehammer rebuttal than the other arguments floating around. I'll just be quoting this one in future.

[JayUtah]

The PLSS is only 19 inches wide (sans cover). Why would that have a problem fitting through a 32-inch door? Frank O'Brien says his PLSS cover souvenir is 20 inches wide. That's still six inches' clearance on either side.

The sticky wicket is the suit itself. The conspiracists say it's too wide to fit through a 32-inch door. Of course they've never actually tried to fit one through. They just measure the suit width and measure the door and declare it to be impossible.

I just measured my leather jacket laid out the same way they measure the suits: 29-30 inches. The secret is to lay the suit arms out so that you're measuring not only the width of the suit breast, but also the deflated diameter of a suit arm on either side. And the arm itself conceals the actual edge of the underlying torso so that the reader can't tell you've grossly hedged the bet.

The conspiracists also make a point out of saying they've measured deflated suits, and that inflated suits would be even more of a problem. Well, first the conspiracists don't know about the restraint layer. And second they don't know anything about geometry. If I make a tubular sleeve to encompass a diameter of, say, six inches when inflated, but then I deflate it and lay it flat, the measured width of that "tube" will be more than six inches. Deflated things are wider, not narrower, than their inflated versions.

[jrkeller]

Well the good thing about this link is that Jim Irwin is talking about the thermal vacuum chamber tests, so it was done in a vacuum. I'd say that several hundred people directly worked on this test (three shifts round the clock), and hundreds more stopped by just to see how things are going..

[Wingnut Ninja]

The suit/door argument has to be one of the most absurd ones I've heard. Don't listen to the people who actually did it, or try to actually do it yourself -- just do a vague measurement of the dimensions of a tangentially related vehicle and say it was impossible.

And people believe this... why?

[Tuckerfan]

A really cool QuickTime VR of the inside of the LM can be found here. You can even see the hatch. Looks pretty honkin' big to me!

[DataCable]

A really cool QuickTime VR of the inside of the LM can be found here. You can even see the hatch. Looks pretty honkin' big to me!

I'm sorry to douse your entheusiasm with a big sloshing bucket of cold water, 8-[ but the forward hatch used for the Lunar EVAs isn't visible in that VR clip. The hatch is below the control panel between the triangular windows, and is square. I think you might be confusing it with the round hatch cover for the docking port above, which is shown open in that VR. (And my advance apologies and a big ol' #-o if I've completely missed any facesiousness on your part.)

[Tuckerfan]

Nope. No enthusiasm dampened here.