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His six suits may be cut down to five now that G bladders can be built into the pressure suit. But over the five, the human Christmas tree must drape more decorations: a parachute pack, a shoulder harness and lap belt, and underarm life preservers (replacing the gaudy old Mae West). For bail-out at high altitude, he dangles an oxygen cylinder. With an assortment of minor hardware such as a knife, flashlight and aluminum pistol, he is equipped for virtually any hazard, but miserably handicapped in flying a plane.
Thus attired, the fighter pilot cannot possibly empty his bowels in flight, and the only arrangements so far devised to let him urinate are minor variants of the old "motorman's pal." It is almost impossible for pilots to eat in flight, though altitude (for reasons not yet known) increases appetite, and a man begins to feel uncomfortably hungry after three to six hours. The Air Force is using gadgets that fit into cans of soup, fruit juice or milk and allow the pilot to suck the contents through a plastic tube let into a side port in his helmet visor.
The Future
Scientists do not hope ever basically to change man's earthbound nature. But they know that in the machine age, man has managed to adapt himself to conditions that seemed "inhuman" and "impossible" only 50 years ago. To ease his adaptation to space and speed, scientists are continuously studying examples of such adaptations in nature.
When man has equipped his body and built his spaceships to break through the vertical frontier, he will have new emotional problems to contend with. Writes Dr. Armstrong: "One peculiar and very interesting psychological reaction to high-altitude flight is the tendency to conceive the airplane as being a totally independent habitation or planet, free of all earthly connection or relationship ... At extreme heights, where the earth is almost invisible through its ever-present enveloping haze, this conception in some instances becomes absolute. The result is a state of mental depression and apprehension, as though one were irrevocably separated from the earth and all its inhabitants."
But the monkeys were shot up to 190,080 ft. in an Aerobee rocket showed no signs of neurosis. Says General Armstrong: "If monkeys can do it, we can learn to do it, too."
* Bends: when pressure is released, the blood and other body fluids will hold less nitrogen and other gases in solution; these begin to bubble out, especially in the knees and wrists, causing great pain. Chokes: gas bubbles form in tissues inside the chest, cause pain probably through pressure on nerve endings. Breathing becomes impossible, and the whole circulatory system is in danger of collapse.