NASA APOLLO SPACESUIT MOBILITY TESTING WATER TANK TEST w/ METAL GRID XD46794

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit Visit our website To test designs of new Apollo spacesuits, a large water tank was employed. This film shows SCUBA divers in the tank, assisting a test subject in a spacesuit, negotiating a metal grid. The baseline of this test (for comparison) can be seen at The suit shown at 2:27, is an SPD-143 model, one of the first prototype spacesuits submitted by the International Latex Corporation to NASA. This model was part of the 1962 Apollo program suit competition. NASA called the suit an AX1-L (the designation “A“ for the Apollo program, X for experimental, 1 for first in a series, and L for manufacturer ILC) or the “Modified Training and Evaluation Suit“. The suit’s peculiar look, with joints and connectors forming an exoskeleton, was to allow an assessment of these parts. Twenty SPD-143 suits were made for training and assessment, and used for early eval