Not many people can say they actually saw Sputnik, but when I was a young boy my Father and I watched Sputnik pass over our house in Buffalo, New York.  That would have been about the time of this space suit artical.  They were probably not too far off in the concept of heavy metal suits and protective vehicles.  Obviouly alternatives were developed since those heavy metals would have been Heavy to lift into space.  The development of materials evolved, during the 60's, and further into what they use today.  Even today, they have concerns about these cosmic radiation flares, pretty sure they have special places in the space stations to get into during solar flares?  Gold foils were used on some of the apollo landing modules, certainly some sort of lightweight process had to be developed for space walks, and lunar suits.