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Author
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Topic: Alan Bean's suit as Canadarm counterweight
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Daugherty54
Member Posts: 591
From: Cabot, Arkansas, USA
Registered: Sep 2010
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posted 02-08-2011 12:16 AM
   
About 18 months ago, I was touring Goddard Space Flight Center as part of a limited teacher workshop. We had walked by the clean room where the Hubble repair parts had been returned and walked to a trial of some sort with a model of the Canadarm. The "elbow" of the arm was supported on a roller/caster like device and as I looked at the empty spacesuit modeling an astronaut on the end of the arm. I noticed the name stenciled on the suit, "BEAN." Alan Bean's old suit was a weight on the end of this relatively unimportant exercise! I was stunned! I talked the tour person into letting me past the enclosure and I have a great picture of me with my arm around Alan Bean's spacesuit. I would have assumed this would have been on display somewhere - even if it was a spare or a training suit. |
garymilgrom
Member Posts: 1966
From: Atlanta, GA
Registered: Feb 2007
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posted 02-08-2011 06:13 AM
Photo please! Sounds great. |
Tykeanaut
Member Posts: 2212
From: Worcestershire, England, UK.
Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 02-08-2011 08:38 AM
Yep, where is the photo? |
Daugherty54
Member Posts: 591
From: Cabot, Arkansas, USA
Registered: Sep 2010
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posted 02-08-2011 05:10 PM
 
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Rick Mulheirn
Member Posts: 4167
From: England
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted 02-09-2011 05:17 PM
Contrary to what one might expect, those Apollo suits are not indestructible; on the contrary, those in the national collection show varying degrees of degradation.That Bean suit seems to be in need of some TLC... |
Daugherty54
Member Posts: 591
From: Cabot, Arkansas, USA
Registered: Sep 2010
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posted 02-09-2011 07:49 PM
Yes, it was pretty rugged looking with the stains and everything. I was just shocked that the near reverence we fans have for spaceflight, was just a job or task for many at NASA. That suit needs to be cleaned and displayed somewhere in my opinion. Still I appreciated the guy letting me get close enough to touch and take photos with it. I'll have a great tale for Mr. Bean at this years Spacefest. |
cv1701
Member Posts: 31
From:
Registered: Apr 2008
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posted 02-11-2011 07:43 AM
That's probably either Bean's Skylab training suit or backup suit. His flight suit is in the NASM national collection.It's amazing how many suits AREN'T in the national collection. NASM has the monopoly on flown suits, definitely, and the Cosmosphere and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center have good collections of backup/training suits. But there are still many that were retained by NASA, locations unknown. Unfortunately, the ones retained by NASA are probably in the worst condition of any of suit collections. |
APG85
Member Posts: 306
From:
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 04-11-2011 06:02 AM
That's terrible to see especially when there are plenty of museums that don't have suits of any type to display at all. What a shame... |
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