Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA's Space-Suit Drama Could Delay Our Trip To the Moon (thedailybeast.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the postponed-until-further-notice dept.

Zorro quotes a report from The Daily Beast: After years of planning, NASA is finally launching a new effort to send astronauts back to the moon and then onward to Mars. But one important piece of technology is missing: a new space suit. Fifty-three years after astronaut Ed White stepped outside his Gemini 4 capsule on the first-ever spacewalk for an American, NASA is stuck using decades-old suits that critics say are too old, too bulky, too rigid, and too few in number for America's new era of space exploration.

Astronauts could need as many as three different kinds of space suits for a single mission. NASA has plenty of flight-suit options, but its extravehicular activity or EVA suits are old and dwindling in number. And the agency doesn't have any suits specifically for surface missions. Time is running out to make up the space suit shortfalls. NASA plans to launch Exploration Mission 1, the first test of Orion and its heavy rocket, as early as 2020. The Lunar Gateway station could be ready for use five or six years later. Despite these looming deadlines, NASA "remains years away from having a flight-ready space suit... suitable for use on future exploration missions," the agency's inspector general warned in a 2017 audit.

11 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. There is nothing in near space. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The people pushing manned space are morons and tourist mongers. There is nowhere to go and no reason to send human petri dishes. This is beyond retarded. People who don't understand the scales involved romanticize the idea.

    If "mankind" is going to go far places and do things, robots are going there first to lay the groundwork. Anything else is just space-force stable genius shit, with Virgin Galactic trying to sell you quarter-million dollar roller coaster rides.

    1. Re: There is nothing in near space. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      And even in these "unreliable" vessels they had: air, water, temperature. Wind for propulsion. Gravity for health. Water for floating. Fish in the ocean. For free. On this planet. Where everything and everyone exists.

      In space, there is nothing. Every molecule you breathe or eat has to be brought along, or death ensues almost instantly.

      For a vacuum with nothing in it. We know, because we sent machines.

      What parallel?

  2. Does NASA need their own spacesuits? by spth · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If what NASA currently has isn't good enough, how about buying from the Europeans, Russians or Chinese? They should have suitable suits for extravehicular activity.

    Delaying the mission seems worse than having to partially rely on foreign technology.

    Suits for surface missions might be a problem, as no one has done such missions recently. But a cooperation with the Chinese who are planning their own mission to the moon might work.

    1. Re:Does NASA need their own spacesuits? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A joint development project aiming for universal suits with the economy of scale to push up the quality and reduce costs would be a way to establish and strengthen international collaboration on space travel. No missile systems there to worry about, after all.

    2. Re:Does NASA need their own spacesuits? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Are you joking? Not Invented Here syndrome. In fact, wasn't it NASA (or one of its prime contractors) that *invented* NIH syndrome?

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  3. Re:Prove you got there. by k2r · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nonsense, time passes, stuff gets old and unused skills are lost.
    Those are no factors that make conspiracy theories any more probable and the mirror is still there for anyone to check.

  4. Getting Dumber? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Come on. How long did it take to design and fabricate the Apollo moon suits?

    Coincidentally, down in the "Related Links" I see: "We're All Getting Dumber, Says Science".

    1. Re: Getting Dumber? by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This. Let's say this mission is real. You have eight years until 2026. Only in government is that a "short time".

  5. Re: Prove you got there. by phantomfive · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There was only one sentence.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  6. just buy SpaceX's by trybywrench · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just buy SpaceX's suits, or pay them to develop one if the existing ones don't meet the requirements. I bet it would cost 1/1000 of NASA's existing budget projections.

    --
    I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
  7. I call B.S. on this one by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First, NASA is not likely to be the primary entity running the next moon mission. They will participate, but that will be done by private enterprise.

    Second, of all of the blockers in the way to a lunar mission, a lunar surface suit is smaller in magnitude than things like a lunar lander, which nobody has at the moment. Consider, for example, a SpaceX mission to the moon. The Dragon 2 capsule is not capable of landing and returning on its own. They would need a vehicle for the Dragon 2 to sit on top of. And the Falcon 9 stages are not appropriate, because they are not cryogenic - they don't work when exposed to cold for more than a few hours.

    SpaceX BFR still has a lot of risk and is a long way away. ULA is developing a cryogenic stage, but that's also a long way away.

    --
    Bruce Perens.