adam savage here in my cave with what is i consider
one of the finer pieces in my collection of space memorabilia this is a beautiful british
high altitude pressure helmet known as the tailor helmet this thing is amazing um
this is a very rare helmet they didn't make a lot of these they were apparently
super uncomfortable to wear and they cost a fortune back in the 70s like i think one of the
figures i came across was 25 000 bucks per helmet in 19 mid 1970s money that's crazy and pilots did
not like wearing this helmet apparently again i'm really looking forward to hearing in the comments
if some of you know more about this helmet than i do because my knowledge is precious is small um i
do have however have a suspicion about why pilots hated wearing this and it has to do with what
it felt like when i wore it because this thing grabs your head like a freaking face hugger no
six straps from all over being tightened against a okay within pressurized environments
there are systems that are called open systems and closed systems
and they kind of mean the opposite of what you think um the system i wore when i
uh put on a david clarke suit for flying in the u2 spy plane that's called an open system helmet
because it's the pressurization it's literally only happening around your face
um yeah because when you go up high in altitude uh because the air is thinner
or sorry the air is thinner because the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen
the other things that are in our breathable air are farther apart
and when you get to those high altitudes it doesn't matter how much oxygen you pump into
your lungs if it's not under pressure the oxygen molecules are too low in number for you to survive
and so you must pressurize the boyle's law leads to more molecules of gas within the confined space
i've long talked about how difficult it is to wear spacesuits under pressure because the spacesuits
because nasa spacesuits in general are what you'd call
closed systems which means the entirety of the anthropomorphic suit is pressurized not just
the part around the face it's much easier to pressurize just apart around the face
but it's much less cut it's easier mechanically much less comfortable physically so when you put
this helmet on and you tighten it down what's happening is is that this
this rubber part is creating a seal right around here i mean
i don't get claustrophobic i really don't but i almost got claustrophobic trying on this helmet
uh it is in fantastic shape a uh a person who had collected this passed away and their granddaughter
sold this to me for real money i mean i didn't get a great deal on it i paid exactly what it
was worth uh and i am so grateful to have this in my collection i just number one i think it's
really clearly the inspiration for the helmet from the opening shot of alien which has the food port
down here and the smoke visor um actually i've got one hold on i'll bring it over and show you
and i don't have the helmet from the opening sequence of alien uh because it's at my house
i like i said i curate some parts back and forth between the cave and the house
um but when i look at the two side by side if you if you watch blade runner tonight or open
up that opening sequence and take a look you'll see totally they were inspired by this helmet um
but i also love like nasa equipment there are aspects of this that are really
clearly just handmade for instance this thing has lettering all over it that's in
handwritten in pen i don't know what some of it means uh it says mods 21 23 24 25 27 28 30
32 34 35 what does i don't even know what that means that mean mods permission i don't know uh
f lt miller is that the person who wore this i'm guessing that's the case i think that's the calm
uh connection i just i love the fiberglass and all the look there's just a way in which
even though this is from the british aerospace uh industry it feels very simpatico with every
piece of nasa hardware i've ever i've ever touched and that it's a it's beautifully made
clearly solving a specific set of problems at a specific point in time and i think of
all the human beings involved in the process i mean there's probably this
is really fascinating this bit of macrame here that exists solely to allow the pilot
to unzip themselves um this is like a wetsuit tether uh i'm gonna guess the first helmets may
not have had that and someone was like you to put something on there so i can take this thing off
uh yeah i have actually had a folder of taylor helmet photos since way way back uh but only a few
years ago ryan agata introduced me to the person who had this for sale and i bought it and a couple
of other things from them and i'm really grateful for it i don't buy a lot of original space
hardware um because it's super expensive that's the main reason i could if i can make it i'm gonna
make it uh but the taylor helmet is just there's just too many it's too weird it's too far i mean
i may end up making a replica of this at some point but only because i actually own a real one
um trying to do this from photo reference would just could have almost broken me um but
i'm so grateful that i was able to add this to my collection because i think it's
i think it's gorgeous and like i said super rare um the i'm still trying to piece together
the various altitude suits this might have been worn with but i believe that one type of altitude
pilot suit that this helmet was worn with is the same um suit of the bosque
basque bossk bounty hunter from star wars with that that washboard that washboard uh thing i
think it's also on some other costumes in the star wars universe right that that actu actually almost
unmodified uh uh uh a flight uniform from the same era so i have considered actually taking
that photo reference and then and sewing together and making the full altitude suit that goes with
this because you know once you've got the helmet well you you always want to complete the package
yeah um i am totally curious about what you might know about this helmet in the
comments so anybody who's uh well more well-versed in british aerospace than me
which is a very low bar um i'd be delighted to add whatever information you know about this helmet to
to my uh compendium of information i keep about all the pieces in my collection thank
you guys for joining me for this show and tell um yeah no i'm not gonna put it on right now
here's what happened the first time i put it on i inhaled a whole bunch of weird dust because of
your breathing through the system that was ridiculous it was stupid
i was like it's awful and i'm still a little traumatized from it and it happened like
two years ago so no i'm not going to put this helmet on my head anymore but it will forever
be a prize piece of my collection thank you guys so much stay safe i will see you next time