The plug-nose rocket engine was developed at the General Electric Company’s Malta Test Station in 1961.
The engine on exhibit is from the New York State Atomic and Space Authority.
Space Suits
58. Astronaut John Glenn is assisted with his suiting-up.
Modern space suits are direct descendants of the simple “pressure suits” designed as early as 1907 for deep-sea divers. In 1911 an English respiratory physiologist, J. S. Haldane, proposed the use of an oxygen pressurized suit for ascent to high altitudes. The first U.S. patent was granted for a pressure suit in 1918.
Through the early 1960s, all such suits were pressure containers. Project Mercury astronauts wore suits adapted from the U.S. Navy MK-IV pressure suit. It consisted of an inner layer of neoprene-coated fabric and a restraint layer of aluminized nylon fabric. The garment design provided a fair degree of mobility, although the suit could not bend with the full hinge motion of the human elbow or knee because it folded in at the joints, reducing overall volume and increasing internal pressure. The Mercury suit would have been pressurized only if spacecraft cabin pressure had been lost.
Space suits require a great deal of sophistication. They must meet many vital criteria, including low leakage, thermal control, comfort, stowage, and protection from micrometeoroid strikes.
Gemini 4 was the first American mission to explore the problems of man functioning outside his spacecraft, with only his space suit for protection. This extravehicular activity required the space suit to be a prime system rather than a precautionary measure.