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NASA's Astronaut Glove Design Competition
FleaPlus writes "NASA's Centennial Challenges program has announced its latest prize contest, the Astronaut Glove Challenge. The competition, a collaboration between NASA and the non-profit Volanz Aerospace, will be held in late 2006 and will award $250K to the team which produces the best-performing glove within contest parameters. The basic idea was originally proposed last year on Rand Simberg's Transterrestrial Musings blog to improve on current gloves, which have difficulties with remaining flexible while maintaining constant internal pressure in the vacuum of space. Previously-announced competitions include prizes for superstrong tethers, beaming power, and extracting oxygen from lunar regolith. These prizes are intended to lay the groundwork for larger competitions to further NASA's Vision for Space Exploration, possibly including 'an eight-figure prize for the first privately developed robotic moon lander.'"
...who now will have a way to keep his thoughts clean by occupying himself designing this glove. He'll just have to get it straight that an astronaut needs both gloves.
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...like OJ Simpson's?
Do away with a full suit and go with a tank top and shorts suit complete with space flip flops? I always like using my bare hands anyway.
Why don't they just reverse engineer one from the aliens?!? :)
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Fred Savage's Power Glove looks to me to be pretty awesome.
Back in 1989?
Title:
i bcode=1993STIA...9590346C&db_key=INST&data_type=HT ML&format=/
Spacesuit glove manufacturing enhancements through the use of advanced technologies
Authors:
Cadogan, David; Bradley, David; Kosmo, Joseph
Abstract
The sucess of astronauts performing extravehicular activity (EVA) on orbit is highly dependent upon the performance of their spacesuit gloves.A study has recently been conducted to advance the development and manufacture of spacesuit gloves. The process replaces the manual techniques of spacesuit glove manufacture by utilizing emerging technologies such as laser scanning, Computer Aided Design (CAD), computer generated two-dimensional patterns from three-dimensionl surfaces, rapid prototyping technology, and laser cutting of materials, to manufacture the new gloves. Results of the program indicate that the baseline process will not increase the cost of the gloves as compared to the existing styles, and in production, may reduce the cost of the gloves. perhaps the most important outcome of the Laserscan process is that greater accuracy and design control can be realized. Greater accuracy was achieved in the baseline anthropometric measurement and CAD data measurement which subsequently improved the design feature. This effectively enhances glove performance through better fit and comfort.
see http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?b
"Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations"
One of the solutions to this is building a robotic glove that helps muscle movement using signals detected from nerves (previosly posted on slashdot for the whole body).
What does your Credit Report look like?
After I made the submission, I came across the following bit on Space Politics, which I think gives a better context for the competition:
Since Michael Griffin became NASA administrator a few months ago we have seen a gradual change in the agency's position on the role of commercial entities in carrying out the VSE. Griffin initially said he was open to it, but noted in early May that he did not want to get into a position where the agency had to rely on commercial contracts to carry out the vision: "I cannot put public money at risk depending on a commercial provider to be in my critical path." Last month, Griffin said he wanted to press ahead with commercial ISS resupply services--cargo initially, later extending to crews--to free up resources elsewhere.
Yesterday, though, NASA raised its commitment to commercialization even higher. Speaking at the Return to the Moon conference, NASA's Chris Shank made it very clear: "We've run the budget and we can't afford to do this with a traditional approach." A non-traditional approach, he explained, will put a far greater emphasis on commercialization, including ISS crew and cargo and perhaps other opportunities, such as purchasing launch services for the CEV. Later in the day, NASA's Brant Sponberg unveiled the agency's new Innovative Programs effort, which includes a mix of service procurements, other transaction authority, and prize competitions.
I also rather liked this bit on Clark Lindsey's RLV News:
Jim Muncy gave a brief but interesting summary yesterday of how he sees the situation with US space policy. He saw Shank's presentation as an indication that the long battle by the entrepreneurial space community to get commercial spaceflight companies welcomed as partners in space development has been won. However, winning a battle can actually mean tougher consequences than losing since now comes the challenge is to fulfill that partnership successfully.
Getting another "big idea" accepted is also making progress. Large scale space settlement must become the primary goal of the space program. No Antarctica-like outposts on the Moon but Las Vegas-es instead. Griffin, in fact, stated in testimony to Congress that human expansion into the solar system is his long term vision for space policy. However, this big idea is still foreign to many at NASA, in Congress, the press and the general public.
Here's my design. Comment on it at will.
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
offtopic maybe but why did they host the pages on tripod rather than on a NASA server? fear of slashdotting ;)
They could separate the head and the body unit from each other and just pump fresh oxygen into the head. The suit could possibly have recycled oxygen that's cooled for temperature control.
That way the hands could be a bit easier to move due to the lower pressure. The suit could also be just a touch baggy.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
[Example - superstrong tether: SpyDerMan]
Power Glove
Beaming Power
Extracting oxygen from lunar regolith
Robotic Moon lander
*uninformative, interesting*
*entries must be postmarked by 7/23 to qualify for free ipod drawing*
Honestly, what would happen if an astronaut just stuck his naked arm out from an airlock into outer space?
A common misbelief is that it would either instantly freeze or explode.
Space is a complete vaccuum, just like the kind in thermos bottles, and it's a VERY good thermal insulant. If your arm is at 37C, and you stick it in the best insulant possible, it will remain at 37C.
Now, the pressure inside your arm is one atmosphere, and the pressure outside is zero, so gases would begin to want to exit your arm, liquids will slowly turn to gases, tissues would expand, yes, but NOT EXPLOSIVELY.
Have you seen 2001: A Space Odyssey? At one point an astronaut jumps from a repair pod to an airlock without an helmet and survives just fine, which is perfectly realistic. The greatest worry is actually all the radiation that outer space is bathed in.
So for the glove design, a basic glove would an impermable layer and on top of that a metallic layer to block the radiations. It would, however, get hot very quick, so a cooling system becomes necessary for extended work outside. But a basic glove can be paper thin, because vaccuum is more harmless than you might think.
I see NASA has really thrown down the gauntlet with this challenge!
I have it on good authority that it really isn't that cold in space. I IM with a fellow who was recently involved in penetrating DoD networks using 3l3t skillz who said they have conclusive data that the average temperature in space is 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Mind you, it's a little colder in winter and a little warmer in summer. I figure a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt should suffice for most days.
So, why not just use the same leather work gloves we use on Earth? Or, is this just another way for NASA to get a budget hike?
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
The aliens have the competition rigged for them to win. It ends up just being a typical government pay-off.
I'm only saying this because I'm in Mexico, and with the way this apartment is run, I'm probably not trackable. /me puts on a tin foil hat just in case
It seems like the big problem with the gloves is maintaining ability to move easily and with dexterity while containing air against the vacuum of space. Would it be possible to make a glove that has no air between the glove and the skin, and therefore doesn't need pressure containment? The glove would need to provide insulation against cold. To do that it could have a closed-cell insulator that's vacuum-capable, or it could even have some active electric heating. The glove also has to provide a barrier to prevent water (in the hand) from boiling/freezing/sublimating, which it seems like an insulating barrier would do. Would any of this work, or does the whole thing have to be pressurized and pressure-capable?
How about designing a really good glove solving all the current issues, patent every aspect of the design to h*ll and back, and then sell the exclusive patent rights to a Chinese conglomerate for at least ten times those $250k?
Hey, if the patent system wasn't meant to be used in that way, it wouldn't have been designed to allow it, right?
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
but it get's lonely up there I'd definitely need a build-in lotion dispenser.
-:)
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Forget gloves...put the arm and hand into a hardened waldo and let a full synthetic appendage do the work.
Having something as fragile as the human hand, inside something as complicated as what is being proposed, isn't a solution.
What I would really be excited about is some competition for a replacement for the shuttle fleet (before you get started, I understand that lots of hard science has gone on in the shuttle missions) so we can get out from the earths shadow. Get people fascinated in space again.
Get a free Ipod!
Lately I'm finding myself enjoying NASA's strategy for developing technology. By rewarding the "discoverer" they get top quality product, for minimal investment and risk of shady contractors. I wish more of our government branches would do this.
The worlds largest compiler of space age materials!
Cool. Thanks for the suggestion.
As far as protection and flexibility go, these are problems that have been faced here in Earth with motorcycle gloves. Two of the more extreme "gauntlet" style product families are from Icon and the Teknic.
The design requirements here are, of course, to allow the rider the agility to operate motorcycle controls - and to protect the hand and fingers against hitting the road at high speed.
In space it's more about protection from heat extremes and against handling sharp objects (possibly exposed metal edges) in a vacuum where puncture resistance is very important.
Anyway, those types of designs might give budding space glove designers pause for thought and inspiration for a starting point. I particularly like the idea of a shell - I figure that a hard articulated structure could help solve the inflation pressure vs movability issue, it could also be spring-loaded to help counteract the effects of inflating to atmospheric pressure. Think of it as building an armored and multi-layered jointed exoskeleton for the hand.
I give you the Mickey-inspired soluting glove:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/nicepark.html
Table-ized A.I.
As we all know they filmed all the "moon shots" in the desert. You'd fry out there without proper clothing.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Is NASA changing its mission from, err, space missions, to handing out $250K grants for weird technology?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I see this as particularly suitable for small diameter closures like gloves -- not much force to hold in. Gloves generating 5 psia hoop stress would only need 5-10 lb force per running inch. Not like keeping a blasted helmet on that might take 500 lb! Or waist closure that is even more (they must have gone to wetsuit-style cross-the shoulders zippers.
I've been looking for a three syllable word for "dirt". Thanks FleaPlus!
-Peter
At the risk of sounding silly and with my hubris level ratched up real high? I'd like to suggest a couple alternatives which might be combined.
1. Mittens (less work I think per finger, more room for heating/cooling lines, less fabric and surface area). Also, enough surface area to be able to bind magnetically to tools maybe, and everyone knows mittens are warmer.
2. Robotic waldo claws, titanium and plastic hand simulacra and radical tentacles (as another poster also recommended waldos). Keeping the hand inside the end of the arm with a metal/rubber waldo attached to the outside (making your arms a bit longer basically) would have some definite advantages. First, you don't have to worry about puncturing your glove, you can get more strength into the waldo than your muscles provide, no pressure to work against, could be controlled by someone else, you could have more than two waldos coming out of your suit (either you multitask between them or you get someone to operate others), they could be shaped like tentacles or wrenches or whatever is best for space work, you can use materials best for space work without having to worry about bendability, temperature, or radiation protection, and you can use very thin or tiny waldo elements scaled down from your hand for tiny places, with mechanical aids adding precision (i.e. lock to an axis, etc.). Finally, consider that while you could just imagine having a single metal hand stuck at the end of a lengthened arm, looking like a deep sea diver's suit, it is also possible to imagine a plasticine hand virtually identical to that of man, but made with titanium bones and superplastic muscles. Considering that evolution and our brains have gotten this far with the current design, it may be best to simply use the same design but beef it up for outer space. If well integrated with the astronaut with advanced haptics technology, it could become like a "ghost hand" and very intuitive to use with fine control. Lastly, about those tentacles. Well yes, space anime does make good use of tentacles, and Doctor Octopus likes them, but I'm thinking that outer space might indeed be like the deep sea in that a large number of highly deformable tentacles could be extremely useful, if the mental barriers to efficient control can be overcome. Certainly it could be possible to mimic a hand with a bundle of fine tentacles, but I am mainly thinking about being able to grip and hold in place multiple large objects, hold oneself down so you don't float away when you try to screw something down, etc. If you could imagine yourself to be more of a fanciful creature from the undersea world than a landlubber biped, you might be able to imagine some improvements. Personally I like the idea of a utility tentacle that will grab onto secured parts to steady you when you are about to float away, and perhaps a couple additional ones that you can use to orient one or two parts in relation to your body while you are working on them.
3. muscle magnification. As someone said was posted earlier which I didn't know. If you have motors in your gloves they could detect where your are trying to move it and then supply more strength. Apparently the original post mentioned nerve signal sensing though I don't know if that's necessary. Also, use of memory metal and other active materials might be useful, and maybe a glove that makes it easier to (ratchet) close than open might be possible.
A combination of the above ideas might be useful, for example if you have a mitten and pull out the area between thumb and fingers to make it a convex box (maybe narrowing wrist to maintain pressure), you can then freely move your fingers and wrist to control a waldo. The movement of the hand could in fact be sensed by laser scanners built into the glove interior, possibly augmented if needed for precision work by having the astronaut first put on a silk glove with barcode-like patterns all over it and a non-slip interior coating. For manhandling big heavy things, coping with tiny things, or makin
the glove better be able to run FreeBSD
that NASA has very little money left now.
they are virtually going by the seat of their pants in regards to funding now that the war criminals have started a war based on lies and forged documents in order to invade on behalf of a small foreign nation, which is overly represented by lobbying groups and spies in america and britain?
imagine what NASA could do with an extra 5-10 billion dollars.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
but just for the inner glove. Have a heavy-duty sort of spandex inner glove which runs all the way up the arm inside the suit wher it attahces at the shoulder region. Then attach the outer glove at the wrist as normal but leave it unpressurized. That could improve dexterity somewhat.
The thing i'm wondering about is heat loss. The outer glove would still be insulated, just not built to maintain pressure. But a vaccuum isn't going to be the best thing to help with that insulation, i would imagine.
Anyone understand this better than me? We could split the $250k...
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
Is it just me, or do these figures seem a little cheap? On the one hand, NASA budgets billions of dollars for these missions, but when it comes time to outsource them and have other people do all the really hard design work, they only give a tenth of what they would normally spend.
Maybe my sense of prices is off, but it looks to me like the prize money isn't going to cover all the work that goes into each project.
I was just reading "Man on the Moon" which seems to be the book that the "From Earth To Moon" miniseries. I was surprised to read accounts of how the astronauts had problems continual pinching of their fingers in the spacesuit gloves, they said their fingers got bruised so badly that prolonged EVA caused them to turn black. Now that sounded horrible.
What about this glove?
-David
I believe I speak for all when I say,
huh??
won't that suit interfere with the "sexperiments" sometimes carried out?
The helmet cannot be Space Balls big or they might smash them together at that moment of truth...
In the (near-vacuum) of space (pretty much) no one can hear you scream (unless your microphone is on or you scream your last gasping breath against their naked ear...), but maybe they can feel your thing...
Minimal... anti-script image...
Yeh, minimalist space suit... Explore space in your birthday suit and it might become your deathday suit.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
lander could be YOURS, if the PRICE IS RIGHT!
Why not just budget $10 trillion on telekenesys training and just move those screws with their brains or will power. Maybe the Church of Cosmology or Cosmetology can help?
Bureaus and Drawers
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
If one can't scratch his bum with it? Seriously I wonder what happens when asstronauts get itchy bum during moonwalks. How the hell can you scratch it. Or are you allowed to even scratch anything in fear of breach?
the uro-genital area? I've seen the "skinsuit" pop up in science fiction on a regular basis and I've looked at the scientific papers but I've never seen anything addressing that. On men the penis and scrotum are a complex shape that would be hard to cover with skin tight fabric. For women the area under the breasts might be a little hard to fill in. For both sexes the anus is problematic. Oh, and the skin suit design assumes that the wearer is not obese.
One could imagine a hard suit area that goes around the uro-genital area but this would need three gaskets and the abdomen tends to flex in and out quite a bit which could make that interface tricky.
People will be on mars in 10 years, at no cost to taxpayers.
Mine is Good
http://www.shadow.org.uk/index.shtml ? Of course this thing is pneumatic and not gonna work in deep space out of the box.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Of course! Thanks for the reply.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
This competition is exactly the way the government should sponsor R&D. By funding only the winner of a competition, maybe with bonuses awarded for other "valuable" contributions that don't win. Which are purchased by the government after passing the publicly spec'ed test, including beating the other competitors. In public view. That way, the people (represented by the government) get to pick a winner, rather than just subsidize a bunch of corporations, mocking both capitalism and the republic.
--
make install -not war
Notice how NASA offers no LAUNCH-related prizes, let alone adequate ones? Is this not peculiar? Government contractors manipulate NASA for their own profit at taxpayers' expense. And the people have the government that they deserve (to quote Ben Franklin).
I believe I speak for the other all when I say,
haha!!
Late-breaking thought (breaking later than the clickage of Submit)...
Please kindly pretend that I changed the subject on the parent post to "Fatties in Space"...
http://undecidedgames.blogspot.com