[TML] Astronaut prepares to risk life for spacewalk

[Timothy Little]

On Sun, Nov 04, 2007 at 08:22:21PM -0500, Richard Aiken wrote:
> Sounds like a standard piece of spacewalking equipment should be a
> large umbrella.

Then you have the problem of whether the umbrella itself heats up or
cools down.  Whichever it does, it will do it quite fast.

Also, things in shade will cool by radiating heat until the amount
they radiate is balanced by the amount they receive from other nearby
radiating objects.  Having an umbrella at 200 C shading something that
therefore cools to -100 C isn't a much better sitation.  :-)


One positive point I didn't take into account previously that in low
Earth orbit, the amount of cooling is limited by the warm, radiating
planet taking up half the sky.  -50 C is a more likely minimum.


- Tim