The Combined Use of Liquid and Gaseous Helium to Provide Near Actual Space Environment

Abstract

Because of the extremely low density of the gas in Interplanetary space, the most important remaining mode of external heat transfer Is radiation. Studies of this phenomenon in its multiple ramifications are being made presently and will continue In both theoretical and experimental areas. These experiments should, most desirably, be made under conditions which duplicate outer space; otherwise, errors may be introduced which cannot be estimated and will only be discovered in the actual environment. Many facilities are presently available which will reproduce the space environment only approximately[^1,2]. The facility which will be discussed here has as its goal, at least for the phenomena connected with radiation heat transfer, the provision of conditions in space as accurately as they are known. The conditions to be reproduced are: (1) the solar electromagnetic radiation spectrum; (2) the low pressure and density of space (∼10^-14 mm Hg); and (3) the black radiation sink of space (4°K).