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NASA's Space-Suit Drama Could Delay Our Trip To the Moon (thedailybeast.com)
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.
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.
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.
Apparently they do, I well remember a few years ago they did a big media splash about a 'design project' wanting public input, mostly on what colour and fashion style they should be.
Perhaps if they had spent just a little more time designing an actual space suit, and less time on PR/Public Image, then they may have one.
Here we go, 2014 (a random story pre, and the results post)..
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/179157-nasa-shows-off-next-generation-z-2-spacesuits-makes-us-question-its-fashion-sense
https://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-s-next-prototype-spacesuit-has-a-brand-new-look-and-it-s-all-thanks-to-you
This. Let's say this mission is real. You have eight years until 2026. Only in government is that a "short time".
TFS fails to mention that we've spent a giant pile of money on next generation EVA suits already, and what's missing is... A mission to build the suits for.
NASA has no manned Mars mission scheduled, no manned Moon mission scheduled, and no capability to put men in orbit. Through that lens saying spacesuits are going to delay our moon trip is 9% dumb.
Our next major manned spaceflight objective beyond ISS is an orbit around the moon and the "Deep space gateway", another space station that will hoover up the majority of NASA's budget for a generation.
Spacenutters don't know that they are nuts; they think 1 Gm is the same as 1 Km if you wish hard enough, and that humans are somehow better at sensing with their narrow 600 nm range (300-900 nm) of the electromagnetic spectrum than devices that can actually detect everything from Planck (1.616199(97)×10 meters) and above without technological limit. There is a nearly infinite amount of actual real events on earth alone that people are unable to observe directly but which are critical to its ecosystems and readily observable by satellites. Using those same instruments and even better ones will produce more data, accomplish more for research, and provide more value than space travel with human passengers.
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?
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.
Thanks for the mental image of the crusty space prospector in his vacsuit make from poorly tanned beaver pelts and burlap.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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.
The water was salt water and not drinkable. They brought the water that they drank (in the form of grog or beer so it wouldn't kill them).
Not many fish are found near the surface in the middle of the oceans. Fisheries are near the coasts where the fish can find food. So no, they couldn't just toss a net overboard and haul in dinner. So they had to bring a food supply too.
Space adds the issue of bringing along air, but that's a pretty easy problem to solve compared to food and water.