New design for private space suit revealed

Inventors hope to market their suit, which includes a roomy helmet and dexterous gloves, to private firms.

By

Katherine Butler

Wed, Jul 21 2010 at 12:09 AM

Related Topics:

NASA

GET READY: Astronauts don NASA spacesuits. (Photo: NASA)

The launch of private enterprise into space has taken huge strides in the past year. President Obama is encouraging NASA collaboration with private industry, companies such as SpaceX are sending up rockets, and Boeing is developing a capsule to transport astronauts. Now, space garments are going private as well. Space.com reports on a new space suit designed for private citizens. And apparently, it has flair.

The new space suit, revealed last week in New York City, has a roomy helmet and two gloves designed for dexterity. The highlight of the suit is the gloves, which are comprised of a blue right glove and a black left one. Space suit engineer Nikolay Moiseev of Moscow designed the blue glove, while Brooklyn-based artist and inventor Ted Southern created the black one. Moiseev worked on flexibility, while Southern improved the torque on his glove.

The result was a space suit that thrilled the audience at its debut. The crowd was able to test the gloves on a Rubik's Cube, and many were amazed at the results. As Southern informed the spectators, "In the future, our plan is to actually blend the two and make a low-torque, single-layer, metacarpal glove."

Together, Moiseev and Southern formed Final Frontier Design, and they recently took second prize and $100,000 in the 2009 NASA astronaut glove challenge. They hope to create a space suit that can be worn during launch and re-entry. The space suit has additional features, such as an easy zip-front entry and a three-step locking system for the gloves.

If Final Frontier Design’s creation goes into space, it will join a long line of innovative space suits. Early space suit research showed that the human skin has the best qualities for space travel, as it is “has very good water retention characteristics, almost no gas permeability, and high tensile strength, while automatically controlling heat retention though perspiration.” However, it is obviously not pressurized or ready for the vacuum of space. If the properties of human skin prove to be the best model, it's likely that future innovators will find a way to mimic it.

For further reading:

You might also like:

Join the conversation

Comment: 1

mason Nov 11 2010 at 5:12 PM

I think this is one of the few times imo when privatization is a really good idea. Whether we think it’s necessary or not, we need to continue to develop new forms of space travel and technology to facilitate it. What the ppl whose only argument is “we have too many problems down here to be worrying about this,” they fail to understand the two most important implications of aeronautical research. The first is for national defense… it’s bad enough that nasa has to rely on Russia to ferry

.... More

them to the ISS. If we keep going at this rate, our disadvantage will only grow as they continue to develop new technologies in their space program while we pump the brakes on ours. Is air and space superiority something you really want the Russians to have? It doesn’t seem like a good idea for any one country to have, let alone one whom we have a sketchy history with. The second is that with aeronautical research comes a flood of new technologies, most of which are very applicable to us down on earth. For example, if it wasn’t for nasa, we wouldn’t have the chips that we use for non-invasive biopsies, solar energy, and a whole litany of other things (http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html#Top has a good number of inventions that most of us don’t know came from our space program). And if you’re one of those ppl that are so skeptical (or cynical imo) that you still don’t think that any of the things on this list warrant a larger investment in a privatized space industry, just remember that while you sleep at night, you most likely have nasa to thank for that, too. If you use any type of home security system, chances are they use infrared and laser technology that came out of nasa’s research (just look at the adt security systems infrared camera page. They even admit that the technology came from nasa!)

Log in or register to post comments
Report This Post

MNN - Mother Nature Network

By

Related Topics:

You might also like:

Join the conversation

ADD YOUR COMMENT

TODAY'S MOST POPULAR ON

NEWSLETTER