How do astronauts keep warm?

Question

What kind of heating system do they use? Space is 454 below zero!

Answer 1

the suit itself "insulates" your body from other elements such as light / shadow.

inside the ship its actually very warm.

they always complain of sweating too much.

its one of the negative effects of zero gravity. sweat doesn't evaporate or even drip down. it forms and stays on you. sound annoying.

space actually doesn't have a temperature. its a vacuum meaning it has no matter in the air to conduct heat or even draw it away from your body.

http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis/vacuum.html

Answer 2

There's a system of heaters and radiators used for heating & cooling. I believe each module on the space station is self-equipped in that regard; The shuttle is in the sun so much that there are huge radiators inside each of the bay doors to remove heat.
Movies like "Apollo 13" show how cold it *can* get - but remember, that was a special situation. The Apollo craft rotated (about once a minute, or once every 5 minutes or so) to keep the craft evenly heated & cooled.... 13 didn't have a chance to do that too miuch.

Answer 3

First of all, space (at least not the space 200 miles above the earth) is that cold. The sun still heats up things when it shines on them. Even the earth itself warms things up to several 100 degrees above absolute zero by thermal radiation when it eclipses the sun (for the orbiting spacecraft).

Spacesuits have several layers, some are for insulation, some layers have little tubes that carry liquids to either heat or cool the astronaut. The backpacks on the suits contain batteries that run (among other things) heaters to heat the liquid and pumps to circulate that liquid.

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Answer 4

Without the Earth's atmosphere to filter the sunlight, the side of the suit facing the Sun may be heated to a temperature as high as 120 degrees C; the other side, exposed to darkness of deep space, may get as cold as -160 degrees C.

Paradoxically, the suit's life support system has to remove the heat and moisture generated by the sweaty working astronaut. This is usually accomplished by circulating cool water through an undergarment worn next to the astronaut's skin.

So...the right answer to the wrong question.

Answer 5

A vacuum has no temperature. there is purely no longer something there to assign a temperature to. whether, area isn't an entire vacuum; there are some gasoline debris floating around. the conventional temperature of those gasoline debris could be as low as 3 Kelvins in deep area. yet that would not count number, because of the fact they are so few and lots between that they could't take in any important quantity of warmth from, say, an astronaut. for this reason, the authentic challenge is having a human in an hermetic healthy, producing a number of of warmth, and having no longer something to habit that warmth to. a minimum of one Apollo astronauts almost handed out from overheating whilst hopping around on the Moon.

Answer 6

Space round the earth is roughly the same temperature as we are, because of heat from the sun. Keeping warm is (generally) not a problem.

Answer 7

actually for being developed in the 1960's those space suits are pretty high-tech. They kept them warm, but not too warm. They keep their bodies safe from radiation and the sun's glare on their eyes. They had several layers of kevlar to protect them from micrometeroids.

Answer 8

Surprisingly enough, the electronic equipment generates more than enough heat for the ship. More info at:
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0124490/eng/astronauts/life_s_shuttle/index.htm#temperature

Answer 9

They have EACH OTHER to keep warm.
Why do you think Lisa Nowak was looking for a man--she was willing to drive 900 miles to go after the woman who was standing in the way of her MAN!

Answer 10

Very very carefully. J/k, they have thermal heating equipment built in thier suits and on board.