Sneak Peak: XCOR CEO Jeff Greason performs a suit fit check in anengineering mockup of the Lynx pressure cabin.
Q: Some call the suit a space suit, but you prefer the term “pressure suit.” Why?
At the altitude the Lynx will fly, where there is no atmospheric pressure, you need more than just an oxygen supply to stay alive. You need a pressure suit. There are many arguments about what a space suit is, some say that the term space suit only applies to those suits you would use for extra-vehicular activity, others call anything you wear in space a space suit. I prefer to avoid all those arguments and just call what we use pressure suits.
Q: Why did you personally wear the suit?
There are two reasons why I wore the suit as we checked out the Lynx cockpit. First, I am unusually tall when I am sitting down. My torso is in the 95 percentile. So that makes me a good model for height. On the other hand, our Chief Test Pilot, (former NASA Astronaut and retired USAF Col. Rick Searfoss), has unusually long legs. So between us, we span a very wide range of people that the cockpit has to fit.
The second reason I wore the suit is that I didn’t spend so many years of my life building this vehicle to find out just before first flight that I didn’t fit in it.
Read Interview HERE.
XCOR Newsletter
No comments:
Post a Comment