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Enter Dava Newman, fashion designer to the stars. You won’t see her work on the red carpet, but if this MIT professor has her way, all the most fashionable space explorers will be wearing her designs when they set foot on the red planet.
For a mission to Mars to succeed, off-world explorers desperately need a new wardrobe to deal with the planet’s unique challenges. In humanity’s entire spacefaring existence, there have been 514 extravehicular space walks, but a single, multi-year mission to Mars will require over 1,000.
Providing that life-preserving pressure requires over a thousand feet of ribbing, which is threaded through the suit at critical strain points and held in place with over 140,000 stitches. Gold fibers are woven through the outfit and paired with biometric sensors to collect data that helps mission control keep tabs on the crew. The snug unis protect astronauts, provide greater freedom of movement and more physically taxing experiments, and importantly, make the astronauts look more like characters in a J.J. Abrams movie than some doofy educational film.
“Aesthetics are a critical component of design and engineering,” says Newman. “I still think space exploration is the most exciting thing going on, and heroic-looking suits might help make more of a human connection for folks.”
Beyond its good looks, the BioSuit will also be safer. If a micrometorite or piece of space junk pierced an EMU, the suit would rapidly depressurize, leaving the astronaut out of luck in outer space, but the BioSuit could be patched with next-gen duct tape.
but the BioSuit could be patched with next-gen duct tape.
“Aesthetics are a critical component of design and engineering,” says Newman. “I still think space exploration is the most exciting thing going on, and heroic-looking suits might help make more of a human connection for folks.”
TDawgRex
reply to post by AliceBleachWhite
Oh lovely. They added Google Glass as well.
And even if the suit can be repaired with a next gen tape...you know it'll hurt like all hell if you are hit with a micro-meteorite. If it doesn't kill ya in the first place.
But overall, if this proof of concepts works...cool.
TDawgRex
One thing I have noticed.
Where is the seal between the suit and the head.
It looks like some type of inflateable thing. But it doesn't look to sturdy to me.
I guess I would have to poke and prod it first before I trusted it.
Indigent
next gen duct tape?!?! imagine the possibilities
Mamatus
Hmmm, now knowing that a space suit needs the ability to process bodily waste I am not certain the form fit model is a good one. Personally I would rather die than have the crotch take a micro meteor.
TDawgRex
reply to post by AliceBleachWhite
Oh lovely. They added Google Glass as well.
And even if the suit can be repaired with a next gen tape...you know it'll hurt like all hell if you are hit with a micro-meteorite. If it doesn't kill ya in the first place.
JadeStar
I like these space suits! I would wear one!