802.11b Space Suits

Saint Aardvark writes "The BBC has an article here about WearSat, the new generation of space suits: embedded RISC processor, 802.11b networking, VGA heads-up display, and 1GB microdrive. I want one for my rec room."

Comments

uh..

[cockeater]

What does it matter what the IT community has accepted/is accepting? I don't think the space program is looking for a standard. These devices will be running on their own network no doubt.

And this is what's wrong with NASA

[freebsd guy]

Back in 1969, I watched with amazement as we first landed on the moon, and I wondered what would come next. Space colonies? Lunar waste disposal? The discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life?

Nowadays, I read space.com and feel an overwhelming sense of depression. I see billions of tax dollars wasted on multimillion dollar toy space suits, and paying large salaries to Slashdot trolls and other function-free individuals.

NASA is a drain on the nation's economy, and we need to send them a clear message: shape up or ship out. We need to run them like the R&D division in a corporation: if they can't produce useful results, innovations, and profit within a few years, we need to start cutting projects and staff. I want to see NASA become synonymous with "technical progress" like it was when I grew up; right now, it is synonymous with "wasted tax money" and that is not a favorable label to have during such a terrible recession.

freebsd guy

Re:And this is what's wrong with NASA

[quantaman]

I want to see NASA become synonymous with "technical progress" like it was when I grew up

What makes you think it isn't? Just because we haven't found e.t. or colonized the moon yet doesn't mean we aren't making technical progress.

right now, it is synonymous with "wasted tax money" and that is not a favorable label to have during such a terrible recession.

On the contrary one of the better ways to get out of a depression is known as Keynsian economics (I probably misspealt it) where the government spends money with the effect of creating jobs and stimulating the economy. While this is somewhat beside the point as it is usually done with blue collar workers is this case the result is somewhat the same. For every dollar spent on Nasa I've heard estimates of everywhere from $12-$20 being generated in the ecomony. That's not to mention the huge technical advances derived from the space industry (how common do you think sattelite communicaton would be if it wasn't for the pioneering experience from the space industry, not to mention numerous innovations that have come from the space program. I recall a while ago I found a link to a site on /. (Im sorry but I'm on a slow connection now and don't have the time to look it up now) that listed many of these innovations (I believe velcro may of been among them although I may be mistaken). Still it is important not to realize that advances must not be obvious to be important, it would be foolhardy to throw away so much future knowledge over anxieties over a downturn in the economic cycle. Right now the fields of research being explored by Nasa and increasingly by the international community are relatively new to are species are we still understand little of what we may learn to do, can we afford to risk trowing away so muchin the long run to ease short term suffering.

p.s. Sorry for the ramble;)

Re:And this is what's wrong with NASA

[Dr. Manhattan]

Back in 1969, I watched with amazement as we first landed on the moon, and I wondered what would come next. Space colonies? Lunar waste disposal? The discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life? ...if they can't produce useful results, innovations, and profit within a few years, we need to start cutting projects and staff.

First off, NASA has produced thousands of spinoffs, and I guarantee you use several of them every day.

But even aside from that, NASA isn't a corporation and not everything should be run as one. You need some "blue-sky" research that isn't focused on a specific goal. You don't know what you'll find, but you'll find something.

Now, incompetence and dumb mistakes (why didn't they use a second intererometer to check?) need to be dealt with, but overall I'd keep NASA. What we really need is some revisions in space law so that private companies can do more space research and run their own launches. Then we get the best of both worlds (no pun intended).

Re:And this is what's wrong with NASA

[Flower]

What I remember is we used to dream and we had the focus to pursue those dreams. Then somewhere along the way we went to being snide, pretenious cynics and evolved into apathetic, Nintendo playing couch potatos.

I want to see Americans become synonymous with "visionaries" like it was when I grew up. Currently Americans are synonymous with "self centered" and that is a terrible label to hold during any generation.

Why no super-collider? Why not finish the final mile? Why this unrelenting bent that all research must be practical to rate funds and that pure research isn't worth anybody's time?

See, you may blame NASA but I remember watching people grow blas'e after a few moon landings and then living through the "Me" generation. Your visions of space colonies and progress died by banality and imo NASA's biggest "mistake" during that time was trying to get people fired up over the space program with elaborate projects that could get enough interest for funding. To quote Pogo "I have seen the enemy and he is us." It takes two to tango and NASA isn't leading if you ask me.

Re:why the microdrive?

[SpinyManiac]

More to the point, I can't see any reference to an input device.

Anyone remember that eye-tracking mouse replacement thing?

Re:why the microdrive?

[sunking2]

Because this is an academic boondoggle that will never be implemented in the current suit. The first article talks about the current US spacesuit, however goto the actual website and they are working with the Russian Orlan suit. This is nothing more than a proof of concept for something that may be usable for a Mars suit, whenever that happens.

The limiting factor in just about all spacewalks are battery life. You can get about 4 hours max. Every milliamp matters. Currently the suit uses an old rad hardened cpu that runs at like 8mghz(I think its an NEC but I'm not positive, and I believe is now out of production). Last I knew they are looking to upgrade that to a more recent/powerful cpu and I believe a rad hardened PPC was in contention. However, the form factor size was about double the current and I believe it drew like 20% more power than the current.
Currently NASA on the ground gets real time data from about a dozen various systems in the suit. This info includes things such as voltage readings, temp, air flow rates, etc.

More info can be had here: here