Most early space suit designs owe a lot to atmospheric diving suits - which have been around since the 1890ies.
Suit built by the brothers Carmagnolle in 1882.
US Navy’s ADS from 1913 …
… with claws.
Oberth for instance would probably have read about the salvage operations on the Egypt in 1922 using suits made by Neufeldt and Kuhnke. Getting gold and silver bullion worth around £1 million (in 1920ies money) from a sunken ship using state-of-the-art technology, it was a great story for the papers.
Then, of course there were the pressure suits for pilots which had been developed since the 1930ies.
I love the way they designed into the helmets a constant look of shock and awe with the ‘OOOH’ mouth holes!
Also, is no one going to mention that in the first image the guy is caring one of those walking sticks that converts into a seat used by elderly golfers? By the look of the suit they would probably need two given the ‘cheek’ size.
I did the makeup for this crazy fashion show which was held inside a giant replica of Valentina Tereshkova’s cosmonaut suit.
Probably wasn’t space-proof.
This is just crying out for an alt-timeline scifi treatment.
How about this: after a King Ralph-style accident involving all her sons and all their children, Queen Victoria is succeeded in 1901 not by Edward VII, but by her eldest daughter Victoria, Dowager Empress of Germany, who seven months later is in turn succeeded by her son, Kaiser Wilhelm II. This union of crowns averts World War I, which in turn averts the Russian Revolution and World War II: and by the 1940s, the world’s two superpowers, the Anglo-German Empire and czarist Russia, are engaged in a race for the moon.
But not the misrepresentation of the opening seat size compared to the buttock cheek size of the space suit… this needs to be discussed in more detail!
Although I like the idea of an advanced time traveling species of humans distributing cough drops to people in the 20th and 21st century in order to uplift humanity to the next level of evolution.
Apparently NASA also visited the Royal Armoury at the Tower of London[1] to see how medieval armourers manufactured joints that offered protection whilst maintaining full movement.
