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"The world is really so surreal these days that it's necessary for us to blunt it somehow in order to stay sane. The artist functions to short-circuit the buffering mechanism, so that people can occasionally perceive the weirdness of things as they are."
- William Gibson

Artificial Skin  
  Tight-fitting material that keeps the heat of the body from escaping into space.  

As far as I know, this is the first reference to the phrase "artificial skin".

If the artificial skin was impenetrable to cold, any more clothing was superfluous. Still they picked out the stout leather clothes which Waldemar Apel had made for this purpose and packed in the rocket, not for warmth but to protect the artificial skin from any injuries and holes. On their feet they wore heavy boots shod with thick lead plates. That too was necessary, in order to bring their centres of gravity down to their feet. Lastly they fastened on their heads the large diving helmets which Apel had made. These also were completely lined with the substance impermeable to heat. It was done in such a way that this material, which they called the artificial skin, fitted around the neck very snugly to the natural skin...

Now indeed each of them carried with him a little ivory tablet and a pencil for writing on it. Again they became rash, leaving the clumsy leather gloves in the cabin and contenting themselves with the artificial skin, which to be sure was double thickness on the hands. When they needed to exchange their impressions, they used writing instead of speech, which was unknown on the moon.

Technovelgy from Between Earth and Moon, by Otfrid von Hanstein.
Published by Wonder Stories Quarterly in 1930
Additional resources -

Compare to plastiskin from Unforeseen (1949) by Roger P. Graham and art-derm from Dr. Futurity (1960) by Philip K. Dick.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Between Earth and Moon
  More Ideas and Technology by Otfrid von Hanstein
  Tech news articles related to Between Earth and Moon
  Tech news articles related to works by Otfrid von Hanstein

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