Yevgeny Yefimovich Chertovsky ( Russian: Евгений Ефимович Чертовский; February 15, 1902 – 1961) was a Soviet Russian inventor who designed the first full pressure suit in Leningrad in 1931. [1]
Chertovsky, an engineer at the Aviation Medicine Institute, was involved in the early Soviet stratospheric balloon program, and co-designed the ill-fated Osoaviakhim-1. The first aircraft designed for crew wearing Chertovsky's pressure suits could have been a gigantic (300,000 cubic meters) USSR-3 balloon that burnt down on launch pad in September 1935. [2]
The CH-1 was a simple pressure-tight suit with helmet which did not have joints, thus requiring substantial force to move the arms and legs when pressurised. This was remedied in CH-2 (1932–1935) and later suits, up to the 1940 CH-7. [3] CH-3 was the first operational suit that allowed the pilot sufficient freedom of movement, first tested in flight in 1937 at a 12 kilometer altitude. [4]
Chertovsky coined the term "skafander" for full pressure suits; from the Greek words skaf ("boat", "ship") and andros ("man"); skafandr has since become the term used by Russians to refer to standard diving dresses or space suits.
Notes
- ^ "Evgeny Chertovsky and his spacesuit (Евгений Чертовский и его скафандр)" (PDF) (in Russian).
- ^ Druzhinin
- ^ Abramov, p. 5
- ^ Alekseev, pp.3–6
References
- Alekseyev, S. M. (1987). Kosmicheskiye skafandry (Космические скафандры вчера, сегодня, завтра) (in Russian). Moscow: Znaniye. Archived from the original on 2011-05-28.
- Abramov, Isaak Pavlovich (2003). Russian Spacesuits. Springer. ISBN 1-85233-732-X.
- Druzhinin, Yu. A. (2006). "Polyoty v stratosferu v SSSR v 1930-ye g. (Полёты в стратосферу в СССР в 1930-е г.)". Voprosy istorii yestestvoznaniya i tekhniki (in Russian) (4). Archived from the original on 2010-12-06.