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

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

[TChris]

In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the pressure itself severely limit mobility.

Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, wants to change that.

Newman is working on a sleek, advanced suit designed to allow superior mobility when humans eventually reach Mars or return to the moon. Her spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your grandfather's spacesuit--think more Spiderman, less John Glenn.

Traditional bulky spacesuits "do not afford the mobility and locomotion capability that astronauts need for partial gravity exploration missions. We really must design for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic capability," Newman says.

Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design firm, Trotti and Associates, have been working on the project for about seven years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for space travel, but demonstrate what they're trying to achieve--a lightweight, skintight suit that will allow astronauts to become truly mobile lunar and Mars explorers.

Newman anticipates that the BioSuit could be ready by the time humans are ready to launch an expedition to Mars, possibly in about 10 years. Current spacesuits could not handle the challenges of such an exploratory mission, Newman says.

[TChris]

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

Yes, I'm quite certain that she knows that. With seven years of work behind it so far, and an admission that they have a lot of work yet to do, I'm sure the project is not exactly "dumb" either.

Professors at MIT tend to be fairly bright.

[saganite]

Groan.

[ASH71]

Thats a dumb statement if i have ever heard one. They are making space suits i think they might know what happens in a vacuum

[snarks_when_bored]

[Old Professer]

Billy Jeff is too old for space travel.

[null and void]

Not Guilty!

[johnny7]

“Dammit!”

[r9etb]

Shoulda read further ... thanks for pointing that out.

The trouble will still be with the gloves, though. You've got to provide enough mobility for the fingers to do things, but still have them be tight enough so that the hands are protected. The real trouble spots will at be both ends of the fingers, and where the fingers meet the palm. It will be difficult to keep those spots tight.

[RightWhale]

In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they wear have changed very little.

Nonsense.

[xenophiles]

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.

It's good mental exercise-- and every now and then it really pays off. An engineer should not do too much of it on paid time, but then should be allowed to keep the rights to discoveries made on the weekend.

[massgopguy]

No 7 of 9, Jerri Lynn Ryan pics?

[PAR35]

Looks like an air gap between the pants leg and shoes. Don’t think it’s going to work.

[snarks_when_bored]

[r9etb]

Looks like an air gap between the pants leg and shoes. Don’t think it’s going to work.

That's a deliberate political ploy: the air gap will lead to all spacewomen having "cankles," and Hillary can claim that she was the inspiration for it.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Babes in Space (PG-13)

[narby]

I'm not sure the technical details, but I think this old USAF "partial pressure" suit used the same concepts.

[how do I post an actual image here???]

[colorado tanker]

No. 27 - Guilty!

[narby]

[MrB]

Slight correction:

“Sally Ride.....’Tang in Space!”

[TChris]

[how do I post an actual image here???]

To post an image:

1. Open up another tab or another copy of your browser and find the image on the Internet.
2. Right-click on the image and select "Copy link location" (Browsers other than Internet Explorer will use different terminology)
3. In the Free Republic form, type <img src=" (including the quotation mark)
4. Press Ctrl+V to paste in the URL of the image you copied.
5. Type "> (including the quotation mark) The final text should look something like this: <img src="http://www.someserver.net/images/someimage.jpg">
6. Click the "Preview" button and see that the correct image appears.
7. Post