NASA stands at the very edge of an incredibly exciting time in space exploration. Mankind has discovered incredibly interesting things on Mars as well as other bodies within our solar system and new spacecrafts are in development that will allow humans to travel faster and farther than ever before. With all this happening, you might be thinking that astronaut clothes is the least of NASA’s concerns, but you couldn’t be more wrong.
A new spacesuit for astronauts to wear during long missions and potential surface visits to the moon and even Mars is missing in action. The suits that NASA astronauts wear during spacewalks at the International Space Station are total relics and the last suits that were worn on the surface of something other than Earth now collect dust in museums. This is a problem.
The situation is more serious than anyone might realize, as the Daily Beast reports.The current suits that astronauts wear massive and heavy and very little about their design has changed since the 1970s. Not only that, of the 18 EVA suits which were originally built, only 11 of them actually still work and they’re built in only three sizes, making for awkward fits for some astronauts.
NASA has many projects resulted in designs that would seem to be a huge step forward. However, none of those projects actually resulted in fully functioning hardware. Those projects set NASA back $200 million, with nothing to show.
With rapidly approaching plans for a lunar jump-off point for deep space missions and trips to places like Mars, knowing what the crew will actually be wearing during those trips is very important. It’s clear that the decisions on a new spacesuit are behind schedule — which is becoming urgent in this new space race. The astronauts who will be taking those missions would surely like to know what they’ll be wearing.
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