NASA APOLLO SKYLAB SPACESUIT MOBILITY TESTING WATER TANK TEST w/ METAL GRID XD47074

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit Visit our website To test designs of new Apollo spacesuits, a large, neutral buoyancy water tank was employed. This (somewhat water damaged) 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 Interestingly, the Skylab space station’s floors, ceilings, and work stations had a somewhat similar metal grid to what is shown here. Shoes with metal cleats were worn by astronauts. The cleats could be inserted into the triangle grid and the heels were rotated to lock the cleats to the grid for stability; rotating in the other direction freed the cleats from the grid. The suit shown in use is probably 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 evaluations of the Lunar Excursion Module (later changed to Lunar Module) and the Command Module. Note that the helmet shown lacks an eye protection sun visor. We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.“ This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit