6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Russian Spacesuits, March 26, 2004
This review is from: Russian Spacesuits (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration) (Paperback)
This is an excellent book with details not before shown outside the formerly closed confines of the old Soviet space program, except in various technical society papers. It has many excellent b&w photos and diagrams of Russian spacesuits from the SK-1, used for Vostok, up to the most modern Russian investigations of Mars EVA suits. The text is somewhat general in content though well written. It is also done in the typical style of Russian/English transliteration. Readers in the West, if they have not previously read any Russian technical papers, may find the transliteration hard to follow at times; but, this does not detract from the value of Mr. Ibramov's good work. If I had any complaint about the book it would be two items. First, the book lacks some technical detail in specific areas, so it sometimes creates more questions than it answers. If I did not already have a background in pressure suits some explanations would have confused me. The inclusion of a few explanatory drawings could have avoided this. Second, while the book gives credit, for the first time, as to which designers at Zvzeda created various general concepts, it does not often shed light on specific contributions, or the dynamimics involved in individual contributions. Nevertheless,I recomend this book. It is a MUST for your library. If the reader wants a technical look at Russian spacesuits I recommend "Pressure Suits and Systems For Work In The Open Cosmos" by Abramov, Severin, Stoklitsky and Sharipov. It is, however, a nearly impossible to find textbook.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Suits for the Space Pioneers, March 12, 2007
This review is from: Russian Spacesuits (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration) (Paperback)
In Russia, the need for suits to be worn in the upper atmosphere, developed in the 1930:ies, engendered the suits to be used in spacecrafts, outside spacecrafts and on the Moon. Naturally, the use of a protective garment inside the space cabin was the first usage, Juri Gagarin wore such a garment on his historic flight. Even today the protective garment is the iconic spacesuit, which we see Cosmonaut wearing as their uniforms for the trip off the Earth. Suits for extravehicular activities, EVA, are quite different. The Soviet Union, of course, never made it to the lunar surface, but had a cosmonaut, probably Alexei Leonov, made a landing, he would have been dressed for the occasion. After all, the first Space Walk ever was also a first testing of a garment to be worn on the Moon, by the man who was supposed to wear it!
The space suit technology, as developed in the Soviet Union, was even applicable to our canine friends, some of which did ballistic flights into space dressed more or less like the dog Milou in Hergés "Tin-Tin on the Moon". Thus we know where to turn if we want to walk our dogs on the Moon.
When Westerners started to fly in space alongside the Soviets, later Russians, in Saljut, Mir and International Space Station, it was as had inhabitants from different planets met. Now we may appreciate all those differences in technical culture as exemplified in the space suits of the Cosmonauts. There is, of course all the common ground resulting from like problems demanding like solutions, but overlying we see these subtle differences arising from different technical and engineering usages of two different cultures.
The book is co-authored by some of the actual developers of space suits in the then Soviet Union, later Russia, and thus as authoritative on the subject as can be. Fascinatingly, also, the historical developments inside the Soviet Union/Russia and internationally, reflect in much that the space suit developers had to contend with.
The scope of common activities betveen the Russians and the West European ESA was news to this rewiewer. We also note, that the Chinese "taikonauts" wear protective suits designed by the nowadays "Zvezda Development and Production Company". We also read of the challenge of rendering original technical texts in Russian into readable English, and concomitant difficulties inherent in the fact that, not only is translation of language required, but even the transliteration from one system of letters, i.e. Cyrillic, into our Roman alphabet poses its own problems and pitfalls. On the whole, the endeavour has been crowned with success. The system of measurements are, thankfully, the same on both sides of this barrier of language and glyphs.
All in all fascinating facts from a space program now slowly opening itself to inquisitive Western eyes. Great hopes for the future is embodied in the prospects of joint developments of the advanced spacesuits for space station EVA and the lunar and martian surfaces.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dressing for vacuum, September 11, 2007
This review is from: Russian Spacesuits (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration) (Paperback)
Spacesuits should be of renewed interest with the upcoming private space tourist ventures.
I bought this book after I had the opportunity to examine, hands-on, a Russian SOKOL rescue suit. What struck me was the sheer simplicity of the design and I wanted to know more about this suit.
This book provides much of that background, plus that of the famous Orlan EVA suits and others in the history of the Russian space program.
Compared to the related books on
US Spacesuits (Springer Praxis Books / Space Exploration), it is remarkable how different Russian suits are, and how much more conservative their designs are. Russian suits, like their spacecraft are relatively stable designs undergoing incremental improvements, probably in response to the much fewer resources available to them for development.
The book covers the development well, although I did not notice any mention of ideas borrowed from US suits, whereas the book on US spacesuits has a wry mention of the remarkable similarity of some US suit components to Russian ones.
As with the US spacesuit book, the same comments on the lack of color illustrations and technical details apply.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
