Slashdot Mirror
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.