From Nasa to SpaceX: How spacesuits have evolved down the years

In his 2017 book, Endurance: A Year In Space, A Lifetime Of Discovery, veteran American astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year, 2015-16, aboard the International Space Station on a unique mission, refers to his spacesuit as “a tiny spacecraft” rather than something he was wearing. For the manned missions of the Artemis programme, which will take humans back to the Moon, astronauts will wear the Orion Crew Survival System suit in US space agency Nasa’s Orion spacecraft. The early years Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, in 1961, wore an orange SK-1 pressure space suit made by Zvezda. The Apollo space suits, the Extravehicular Mobility Units, consisted of the suit and a life support “backpack”, called the PLSS, or portable life support system. The Apollo space suits, the Extravehicular Mobility Units, consisted of the suit and a life support “backpack”, called the PLSS, or portable life support system, which supplied oxygen for breathing, suit pressurisation and ventilation, apart from performing other critical functions.