Quote:
Originally Posted by classic
Speaking of Apollo 13, I've always wondered why they didn't put on their spacesuits with the life support backpacks to conserve oxygen, and stay warm.
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First, the backpacks only work in vacuum. When the suits are worn in the spacecraft, they are plugged into the suit loop of the environmental control system, which consumes more electricity than the normal cabin ECS conditioning. If you omit airtight integrity and just wear the suits, they don't "breathe" and therefore force the astronauts to perspire. Then when the suits are removed, the crew is far worse off because they're sweaty in a cold atmosphere.