Posted on 03/10/2002 8:42:54 PM PST by RightWhale
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020304/spacesuit.html
NASA Drops Women's Spacesuit Plans
By Irene Brown, Discovery News
March 8 — For five days now, veteran astronaut Nancy Currie has diligently driven around her spacewalking crewmates as they worked on the Hubble Space Telescope while anchored to a platform on the shuttle's robot arm.
She's not complaining, but Currie, who also operated the crane for the first International Space Station construction mission certainly could be forgiven a case of spacewalk envy.
The 5-foot-tall, 110-pound helicopter pilot doesn't even have a chance at an orbital outing because NASA has no suit to fit her. The agency suspended plans to develop a small-sized spacesuit, which would have fit 95 percent of the women — as well as some of the men — who are currently in the astronaut corps.
"The project has been deferred until such time that funds can be made available," said Allen Flynt, head of NASA's Extravehicular Activity Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
NASA's spacesuits are an amalgamation of different-sized coverings for arms, legs, hands, boots and other body parts, all mounted to a hard upper torso base, which currently is available in three sizes - medium, large and extra-large. The suit fits 90 percent of the male astronauts, but just 60 percent of the females, who tend to have narrower chests and shorter arm spans. As the agency prepared for steep increase in the number of spacewalks to build and maintain the station, engineers began designing and testing a small spacesuit torso to accommodate at least seven women in the current astronaut corps who could not fit into a medium-sized suit.
In addition, the small suit might have been a more comfortable and maneuverable fit for more than a dozen other female astronauts who made do with a larger size.
Researchers are somewhat concerned that shelving a suit for women will affect biomedical research planned for the space station, but NASA says height requirements for the Russian Soyuz escape ship make far more women ineligible for long-duration station missions than does the lack of a spacesuit.
The agency is also considering lifting restrictions that all three station crewmembers be certified to conduct spacewalks, meaning that a woman could serve as a station crewmember and a research subject even if she's not spacewalk certified, said NASA spokesman James Hartsfeld.
"Gender is germane to biomedical research," said Jeffrey Sutton, director of a NASA-funded space medicine institute that develops countermeasures for the bone-loss, cardiovascular changes and other undesirable effects of space travel. "In our research, we follow protocols of the NIH (National Institutes of Health) so we try to get a cross-section of the population."
NASA briefly considered flying an all-female shuttle crew for medical research but so far hasn't followed through with the initiative. The agency did host a workshop in 1999 that issued a report calling for NASA to look into developing a spacewalking suit for women.
"A space 'glass-ceiling' should not exist based on size or gender," the panel said.
NASA had already spent between $6 million and $7 million to develop a small suit before deciding to shelve the program, added Flynt.
Keyword test.
Wonderful. I wonder how much more it would have taken to finish.
I'm sure the NAASCW will be filing a law suit in the near future to fight this blatant discrimination.
". The suit fits 90 percent of the male astronauts, but just 60 percent of the females, who tend to have narrower chests and shorter arm spans."
OK, fine. The problemo isn't that the suits are too LARGE, it's that our AstroBabes are too SMALL. Why don't they just hire and train LARGER WOMEN for this work? There shouldn't be a shortage - look at all the gals playing college basketball in the NCAA. They are all easily size and conditioning equals of the guys we send up. Bunch of 'em are darned bright, too.
Of course, we could also try the old East German Female Olympic Athlete Plan - they had some real "Arnoldettes."
Michael
If the ONLY reason women cannot EVA is because of suit design, then that needs to be addressed. We're not talking physical reqirements to do a job, after all, we're talking the size of the UNIFORM!
If, OTOH, physical fitness and testing requirements have been changed to accomadate women, that is unacceptable. There is a difference between the two issues.
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