One giant leap for space fashion: MIT team designs sleek, skintight spacesuit

MIT News ^ | 7/16/2007 | Anne Trafton

[TChris]

Interesting progress

[xcamel]

Spray on?

:-)

[r9etb]

Dava Newman. For research purposes only....

[Red Badger]

I wouldn’t mind getting in to her space suit..........

[BenLurkin]

‘Barbarella’ ping!

[Hegemony Cricket]

Hello, Newman.

[Psycho_Bunny]

They look funnier than hell but if it works...what an awesome breakthrough!

[dfwgator]

[tarheelswamprat]

Paging Seven Of Nine...

[TChris]

Oh yeah!? Well, "            " to you too!

[r9etb]

Newman's prototype suit is a revolutionary departure from the traditional model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts a force on the astronaut's body to protect it from the vacuum of space, the suit relies on mechanical counter-pressure, which involves wrapping tight layers of material around the body. The trick is to make a suit that is skintight but stretches with the body, allowing freedom of movement.

Well, no, it's not a new idea at all. About 20 years ago I saw some old NASA test films (dating back to the '60s) of "skintight suits," based on exactly the same principles.

The suits worked OK for a while, but eventually the extremities -- hands especially -- began to swell so much that the test subject couldn't even get the gloves on, much less do anything with his hands.

The more things change....

[Joe 6-pack]

Not guilty.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

I’ll never forget the “Tang” commercial I heard maybe 15 years ago.........
“Sally Ride.....Tang in Space!”

[edcoil]

The bigger suits also afford better protection from all the space junk that hits the shuttle and men in eva. How do they plan to address that?

[r9etb]

They look funnier than hell but if it works...what an awesome breakthrough!

They tried this approach 40+ years ago, and it didn't work. The most difficult hurdle is not the torso, but rather the hands, for which it is extremely difficult to make suitable gloves based on this technology.

[InkYouBuss_007]

I note the inclusion of knee pads...a wise choice.

[TChris]

The more things change....

I didn't know about the previous tries. That's interesting.

One thing I've noticed among engineers I've worked with is a propensity to reinvent the wheel, mostly because they're sure they can design a better wheel than the last guy. Some of them really don't like to use someone else's work, or trust their results.

I wonder if this is a result of the same kind of problem, or if it's simply a result of ignorance of the past attempts. (Libs aren't real keen on history and all that.)

[Paradox]

I wonder if this is a result of the same kind of problem, or if it's simply a result of ignorance of the past attempts.

They think they can do it, what with the advances in materials science. It would be great if they could do it..

[Mr. K]

If you lose pressure your blood literally boils- does she know that? This is a dumb story.

[Paradox]

Actually, they mention this later in the article:

The new BioSuit builds on ideas developed in the 1960s and 1970s by Paul Webb, who first came up with the concept for a "space activity suit," and Saul Iberall, who postulated the lines of non-extension. However, neither the technology nor the materials were available then.