Early NASA space suits where silver, now they're white. Why change?

Question

I'm sure that silver reflects more sunlight than white does and I would have thought that sunlight would be the big danger. Also the silver suits looked a lot more spacey. Basically, what was the technical reasoning behind changing the colour?

Answer 1

well something when u keep something too long it gets stale so u have to replace it. probably the silver is better

Answer 2

The difference is the material used and the role they have to fulfill. The early space suits had been very simple and had only few layers, while modern spacesuits are very complex and have many different layers with special functions.

The only silver "space suit" for Mercury was no space suit at all. It was just a pressure suit, the Navy Mark V. The outer layer of it was aluminum coated nylon, but it had not been designed to allow full EVAs.

The G3C Gemini space suit had a outer layer of white Nomex over 6 layers of Nylon.

The difference between Nomex and Nylon was that Nomex is flame resistant.  It also reflects radiation far better as aluminum coated Nylon.

Nomex is still used for the orange pressure suits of the Shuttle.

Later, Teflon coated Beta cloth  got used for Apollo. Again with similar reasons as using Nomex over Nylon, as beta cloth is also flame resistant.

Answer 3

not sure about the colour but they also need to stop the micro bits of debris that they can encounter

Answer 4

quote this

"its a white mans world"

Answer 5

Just a guess.  Like you say silver should reflect more sunlight.  However, with better (thin?) insulation it may not be as necessary to reflect so much heat and white should reflect all the colors that exist in pure white light, making it the next best choice.  Likely the white material is superior in its own way (more durable, flexible, less costly, less bulky, etc.???).