Historic Shuttle Spacesuits to Meet Fiery End

collectSPACE writes "While some museums bid for retired space shuttle orbiters, the real prize may be the spacewalking spacesuits, at least if NASA's plans for them hold true. The now-reusable extravehicular mobility units (EMUs) are soon to become disposable, allowed to disintegrate as they reenter the Earth's atmosphere inside spent cargo ships."

Comments

Re:Hey! Tax money paid for those

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point.

Also I think its ironic that at the height of the cold war - of the fight of capitalism vs socialism - that the US Govt used a centrally planned and tax funded program (NASA/space landing) as a propaganda tool of how great they were. The commies must have been laughing their asses off.

Re:Hey! Tax money paid for those

[mikelieman]

I think that perfectly summarizes NASAs problems.

Their heads are so far stuck up their asses that they've forgotten what their Mission is.

Develop access to space.

And if they can't even BRING BACK THEIR STUFF, then they've failed completely.

And another thing. These suits suck. Hamilton Standard needs to lose their lock on it, so we can get some innovation and development.

And another thing. For less than we've spent on the Iraq war, we *could have had* a constellation of space solar power satellites, and the lifting infrastructure to ensure access to space.

Fucking Oil Junkies.

Re:Have you read why this is?

[couchslug]

If we want to advance instead of grandstand, we need a faster technology development cycle. We can't have that because of the safety issues associated with putting Meat in space. If we skip (government funded) manned missions for say, fifty years, we could have far more capable unmanned systems.
We have as much time as we care to take.

If we can study and manipulate the things in space we need to study and manipulate without human attendants, we can get far more bang for our investment. Terrestrial exploration was carried out by humans when these were relatively expendable. Astronauts may be willing to take risks, but the public snivels when they die (unlike the risk acceptance in the heydays of test pilots...) and their life support systems impact mission duration.

Tax money

[Bayoudegradeable]

Not to sound like a jerk, but the number of things that our taxes pay for that we can't see in museums is most likely staggering. I'd love to see all of our latest and greatest gadgets... not that spacesuits are state guarded secrets, right? Perhaps some fat-cat space contractor just talked NASA Manager #45ef.99 into agreeing to a deal where fat-cat space contractor gets to make a TON more money by making "disposable" space suits... Nothing ensures orders like a terminal product.

Ok Im sorry

[falcon5768]

But if they cant even fly down a EMU because of its weight... whats going to happen if god-forbid they need to emergency evac the ISS and the only thing left to leave on is a Orion? I realize there is a Soyuz, but say its damaged in the emergency, or say it happens at a point where they are switching out the lifeboat. Your telling me that this new spacecraft is going to be so poorly designed in relation to our assets as to be useless in the case of a emergency? Have we learned NOTHING in regards to planning for the worst?

Re:Hey! Tax money paid for those

[CastrTroy]

Isn't coming back just falling back to earth? How can you not have enough power to fall? Ok maybe I'm trying to be a little bit funny, but it seems like if they have enough energy to bring it up, then there should be not problem bringing it back down.

Maybe I am missing something.....

[belligerent0001]

Ok, Let me get this straight....They can take off with the suits, but they can't come back with them...because of weight? So, the craft has the power to lift off with the suit, but doesn't have the power to fall from the sky with the extra weight of the suit? Does not compute Will Robinson....