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NASA

NASA Awards 2 Companies the Chance To Build Lunar Spacesuits (cnn.com) 34

New spacesuits made by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace could be worn by astronauts that land on the moon later this decade through NASA's Artemis program, the agency announced Wednesday. The suits will also be worn by crew members living and working on the International Space Station. CNN reports: The contracts were awarded by NASA as part of its strategy of growing commercial partnerships. Both companies have been selected to move forward in developing the next generation of spacesuits. Depending on how the two companies deliver on the suits and their spacewalking capabilities, one company could prevail over the other. That flexibility has been built into the task awards as the two companies progress in product development.

The Artemis program seeks to land the first woman and the first person of color at the lunar south pole by 2025, and eventually prepare for landing crewed missions on Mars. Experts from NASA have developed the required safety and technical standards for the spacesuits. Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace will design, develop and potentially produce the suits and any necessary equipment for space station crew and Artemis astronauts. [...] The suits are expected to be ready by the mid-2020s.

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NASA Awards 2 Companies the Chance To Build Lunar Spacesuits

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  • The Artemis program seeks to land the first woman and the first person of color at the lunar south pole by 2025

    I thought we wanted to send the politicians, accountants, advertising agency people, high-level company managers and non-bankruptcy lawyers first? You know, so that we join them later, of course.

    • Obviously, if those people were sent first, the planet Earth would become so much more livable that the concept of trying to exist in the frightful ecologies away from our mother planet is so awful that no sensible person would have any motivation to leave.
    • Telephone sanitizers.

    • It's always "follow the science", until something like this comes along. I'm curious as to the scientific need for this, other than grandstanding and a nebulous claim of "representation".
  • by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Thursday June 02, 2022 @08:29AM (#62586278) Journal
    The EMU suits [wikipedia.org] used on the International Space Station are in desperate need of replacement. Most of the components are around 20 years old. There have also been some difficulties with water leaks [google.com], which in zero-G is a serious hazard. It would be a terrible irony to have an astronaut die in orbit by drowning.

    Safety aside, I look forward to these new suits being much more comfortable and maneuverable, and compatible with a wider range of bodies.
  • The Artemis program seeks to land the first woman and the first person of color at the lunar south pole by 2025

    How did we come from dreaming of one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character to dedicating such coveted positions of honor — as Supreme Court judgeship [cnn.com], Vice-Presidential nominations [nypost.com], or indeed space exploration — to people based on their sex and/or skin-color?

    And, worse, openly admitting to such bigotry and bia

    • While they are openly afmitting it that is better than hiding it, behind useless sayings and memes.

      Or worse yet attending KKK rallies and saying there is nothing wrong. You know like most republicans do.

      If you are unwilling to punish people for bad behavior then you encourage that bad behavior yourself. Hence why Mrs Green will never be punished by Republicans.

      • by mi ( 197448 )

        that is better than hiding it

        It is only better to admit to such thing, if the admission is remorseful — made with the intent to stop the thing(s) admitted to from reoccurring — which it is not in the cases I enumerated. On the contrary, it is considered a good thing...

        KKK rallies [...] You know like most republicans do.

        That's an obvious lie — no wonder, you offered no substantiation for this claim.

        • 100% of all kkk members vote republican.

          Not all republucans are kkk members. However if republican politicans attend and endorse kkk rallies woth zero push back from other republicans then that means you quietly endorse and support those positions.

          Thr dame is true on the left. Whoch is why when cuomo was caught being a sexist jerk at first there was a bit of defense and then a push away from him. Because you cant say you are againist soemthing without defending that point.

          • 100% of all kkk members vote republican.

            Whether that's true or not — and you are not substantiating this claim either — that's not, what you claimed earlier. Which was that "most republicans attend KKK rallies".

            Awaiting your explicit withdrawal of that earlier claim and substantiation (or withdrawal) of the new one.

      • by Terwin ( 412356 )

        Or worse yet attending KKK rallies and saying there is nothing wrong. You know like most republicans do.

        That seems highly dubious considering that the only US senator that I am aware of with a history in the KKK was Democrat Robert Byrd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
        As a former high-ranking KKK Recruiter who spent > 50 years in the senate as a Democrat and even spent over 20 years as the chair of the Senate Democrat Caucus(Ie Majority/Minority leader for the Democrats in the senate, Jan 1977 - Jan 1989).

        (This makes sense as 'The South' was democrat territory during reconstruction which was when the KKK

        • by Terwin ( 412356 )

          As a former high-ranking KKK Recruiter who spent > 50 years in the senate as a Democrat and even spent over 20 years as the chair of the Senate Democrat Caucus(Ie Majority/Minority leader for the Democrats in the senate, Jan 1977 - Jan 1989).

          Senate from 1959 until his death in 2010 = 51 years, Majority/minority leader was only 12 years.

    • If we don't have racial quota's, then the current system of blocking minorities will continue because "we want the best man for the job". Excuses: We can't send a woman because it's an all male crew. We know straight white men work, it would introduce risks. We don't have health data on women. Women don't fit the profile (made from all our prior lunar explorers).
      • by mi ( 197448 )

        the current system of blocking minorities

        What "current system of blocking minorities"? Is it in the room with us now?

        We can't send a woman

        Get your bullshit together — women are a majority of the population [statista.com], they are not a minority...

        • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          Get your bullshit together — women are a majority of the population [statista.com], they are not a minority...

          currently_awake didn't say that women were a minority just that the argument is that you can't have a mixed gender crew (and since most astronauts are males you would limit the crew to males).
          This kind of proves that we aren't at the point where we can just judge people on the content of their character and may need to make hires based on race/gender. If we only looked at the content of their character and women make up the majority of the population we would have more women astronauts than we have male ast

          • If we only looked at the content of their character and women make up the majority of the population we would have more women astronauts than we have male astronauts.

            This is an absolutely ridiculous comment. Selection for astronaut crews is not a function of a random sample of the population, nor should it be.

            • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

              Sure astronaut selection isn't a random sampling of the population but if all you are doing is looking at the character of a person then your selected group should roughly mimic the population makeup. The only way this wouldn't be true is if there a certain segment of your population is has an advantage over the other segments of the population. Do white males have some inherent ability that makes them much more likely to be good astronauts?

              • Do white males have some inherent ability that makes them much more likely to be good astronauts?

                The racial makeup of the astronaut crews is no longer remotely close to being uniformly white.

                As for the male/female ratio, only about 20% of engineering degrees are taken by women. That is the overwhelming reason for the disparity.

                • Do white males have some inherent ability that makes them much more likely to be good astronauts?

                  The racial makeup of the astronaut crews is no longer remotely close to being uniformly white.

                  As for the male/female ratio, only about 20% of engineering degrees are taken by women. That is the overwhelming reason for the disparity.

                  How are engineering degrees related to the disparity? Are all astronauts supposed to have degrees in engineering?

              • Do white males have some inherent ability that makes them much more likely to be good astronauts?

                Europeans have been fishing for their protein for thousands of years. That means White men have gone out to sail the seas for generations while their mothers and sisters stayed home to feed and educate the children. With space exploration being the closest contemporary equivalent to sailing the seas there is an inherent tendency for White men to excel at being astronauts.

                That doesn't mean women of non-European ancestry can't be astronauts, or even be the best damned astronaut that ever lived. It means wh

                • When given a large enough population you are going to see White men
                  excel at being astronauts. It is in their DNA.

                  And how the fuck do you know that?
                  Did a nuke plant tell you?

              • By that argument, the nursing profession and elementary schools are horribly sexist. Let alone racism within professional sports.
          • by mi ( 197448 )

            currently_awake didn't say that women were a minority

            Yes, he did: he claimed there exists a "current system of blocking minorities", and then proceeded with some strawman "example" of this fictional system's manifestation as "We can't send a woman ...". It is perfectly clear, that "a woman" to him is part of a minority — a blocked minority.

            That you're defending him by denying his own words is quite hilarious, actually :-) It means, you understand and agree, that the meaning is ridiculous — so yo

      • Men and women are different. This has been true since before humans were human.

        For the best chances of having the most healthy children to grow the human population we had men and women evolve, physically and socially, into different roles. We've come to recognize that not every man and woman is suited for these traditional roles so while we might not prevent women from rocketing off into outer space we might not exactly encourage it either.

        There's many reasons why men have been going off to explore while

    • Because history is in fact a thing, and in both those cases was someone nominated that was not qualified? I don't particularly like Amy Barrett but I can't say she did not fit the on paper qualifications. I am not a huge fan of Kamala Harris but is she less qualified to be VP than the other possible candidates? That is the key distinction and unless there is a case of someone not qualified getting a position because of race or sex over someone otherwise qualified then having some representation is in fac

    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      It doesn't look like we are becoming a nation "where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" since the vast majority of astronauts are white males. Unless you are trying to say that white males as a race/gender are statistically much better than all other candidates it just may be time that we actually look at including other races/genders in the selection process even if that means setting aside a slot or two that white males are specifically disqualified t

      • I'm going to say that White men are statistically going to excel at being astronauts.

        In Europe we had people start with needing to live on protein from fish, and the milk from cattle. There wasn't much sun so they developed light skin and tolerance for drinking cattle milk as an adult, this meant more vitamin D from the sun and milk. Getting fish meant being good at building ships, being a good crew member, navigating by the stars, be good with numbers and angles. With travel by land people had to be goo

    • Nobody seemed to care about this when you had to be white to do any of those things. Millions of people were absolutely okay with it. The bias was so utterly one sided and so pervasive that it was considered normal. So, to try and balance some shit out for hundreds of years of white only, we seek out talented and capable people who were overlooked to fulfill significant roles in society. People who likely would have been chosen in the past, but we never even gave them a fair shake. And NOW you suddenly give
  • I went looking to see how much was being awarded up front and NASA has not disclosed it yet. Total potential contract value is $3.5 billion through 2034 if all options are exercised, but they haven't said how much was awarded to the two companies up front. Disclosure is due by the end of the month.

As long as we're going to reinvent the wheel again, we might as well try making it round this time. - Mike Dennison

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