And so it continues…

4. “The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.”

Firstly, there are two different types of “football” this article could be referring to. For me, as I live in the UK, “football” would mean soccer ball – but for an American, it would mean an American football ball. So I’ll play devil’s advocate and look at the pressurisation for both:

Soccer ball: Six to eight pounds per square inch (6 – 8lbs PSI. Source – and FIFA match regulations can be as high as 12lb PSI)

American football: 12 to 13 pounds per square inch (12 – 13lbs PSI. Source: various)

Basically, a lot. It is true that if an Apollo space suit were to be pressurised to such a level, particularly the American football levels, the astronauts would appear as “Michelin Men” indeed.

However.

The Apollo suits, the A71, were pressurised to around 4.7 PSI according to ApolloSpacesuits.com. I have also seen lower numbers, sometimes as little as 3.2 PSI, mentioned. Even if it is 4.7 PSI, that it still an awful lot less than a football of either type – so the first part of the “oddity” is doubtful, to say the best. It would clearly be an awful lot easier to move in a 4.7 PSI space suit than one pressurised to 13 PSI – that’s a big difference.

The inner layer of the Apollo space suits, courtesy of the ALSJ.

Secondly, the assumption that the suits were essentially one big bag is incorrect. The suits were layered, and what’s more, the joins – such as shoulders and knees – featured accordion-type mechanisms which allowed for flexible movement.

So… considering the suits had almost half the pressurisation implied, and were built with accordion mechanisms on joints to increase flexibility, this space oddity becomes null and void. It should also be noted that the space suits were still not easy to work in, even with these design modifications.

For example, on Apollo 15, Dave Scott requested his suit arms be shortened to allow for increase flexibility in his fingers. This lead to his nails bleeding badly during an EVA, but shows the length astronauts’ went to to increase their dexterity within the confines of the space suits. Many of the early moonwalkers advised their colleages to do extra weights workouts to increase their ability to move the suit, and several astronauts used more oxygen than expected during an EVA due to breathing heavily from having to move the suit. They were by no means “easy” to move in – though they were easier to move in than the original Oddity would imply.

It is also worth remembering that while the suits weighed around 82kg on earth, on the moon they weighed less than 14kg. This is not  directly connected to the influence of the pressurisation, but is sometimes cited by other conspiracy theories as another reason for astronauts’ supposedly needing to be more hampered on the moon.

Further Reading

• The aforementioned site, ApolloSpacesuits.com, is a fascinating blog detailing the author’s attempts – and successes – to recreate replicas of the Apollo space suits.