NASA Testing Lighter Space Suits For Asteroid Work 54
Zothecula writes "Sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward. NASA is carrying out initial tests on a new, lighter spacesuit for use by the crew of the Orion spacecraft that is currently under development. The tests are being carried out in the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas on a modified version of the pumpkin orange suit normally worn by Space Shuttle crews during liftoff and re-entry and is a return to a space suit design of the 1960s."
Re:as long as it's sexy it's okay (Score:4, Interesting)
First zero g porn was shot on a private vomit comet. Don't recall the name.
It had to suck, being made up of 22 second zero g shots edited together.
Re:Return to a space suit design of the 1960s (Score:5, Interesting)
NASA might have been expensive, but they pioneered a lot of things that are used every day, and not just Tang.
One can list hundreds of things that have come from NASA's moon launches and are used in common products these days. LEDs, airplane de-icing systems, fire-resistant materials, and non-destructive stress testing are just starters.
Of course, NASA has become the political whipping boy because it doesn't have immediate ROI. No, sending a robot to Mars might not have dollars rolling in, but the technological hurdles overcome to do the missions are things learned and can be used in the private sector.
Re:Return to a space suit design of the 1960s (Score:5, Interesting)
"They never learned to build infrastructure. They never wanted to launch a mission that had any risk." It's hard to tell what NASA you are talking about here, NASA in the '60s or NASA in the 2000's? If it was NASA in the 60's then you are wrong. NASA in the 60's was all about risky missions. I personally heard Frank Borman at a conference a few years ago state that when he launched on Apollo 8 he figured that he had a 50% chance of coming back. For lasting infrastructure, the Vehicle Assembly Building and the crawler-transporter at Kennedy were built for the first Saturn V then used through the Space Shuttle program with plans for use by SLS. Same for the engine test stands at Stennis in Mississippi. On the pert charts -- one of the acknowledged major accomplishments of the Apollo Program was the development of a management process to successfully pull off such a gigantic and fast moving program.