Mars Space Suit Trials in North Dakota

AbsoluteZero writes to tell us Space.com is reporting that a new spacesuit prototype being designed for Mars exploration is currently being tested in North Dakota. From the article: "The Mars spacesuit is the culmination of 14 months of work by faculty and students with the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium, which received $100,000 from NASA to develop the prototype. The local public is invited to view the Mars spacesuit in action on Sat. May 6, weather permitting, at its North Dakota test site."

Comments

Confusion

[Umbral Blot]

I am a bit confused, they will cancel the test if there is bad weather? It's a spacesuit, it shouldn't be affected by bad weather, and if it is it shouldn't be used in planetary exploration. Otherwise you end up with the following situation: "I would have been the first man to set foot on mars, but it was windy out, so we went home".

Re:Wrong place to test it

[Ebirah]

Using the dry valleys of Antarctica would push up the cost of testing considerably. While they do approach Martian temperatures more closely than most terrestrial sites, the environment is predominantly bare rock, and the atmospheric pressure is normal for Earth.

So they only really (approximately) satisfy one of the conditions (temperature) that needs to be tested, which can probably be dealt with just as well (and much more cost-effectively) in a large refrigerator. The suit's handling of Martian atmospheric pressure can't really be tested in any natural terrestrial environment. I suspect North Dakota probably provides an adequate facsimile of Martian terrain, though (and at a reasonable price).

$100,000

[alex_vegas]

Is anyone struck by how inexpensive $100,000 seems for a space suit