Posted on 06/01/2022 9:24:24 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Teams led by Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace (with ILC Dover as a major contributor) received access to a contract worth up to a total of $3.5 billion to supply spacesuits for future NASA missions through 2034...
Axiom and Collins don't have guaranteed orders yet under the contract. (The Collins-ILC Dover team has decades of experience supplying spacesuits to NASA, while Axiom is a new entrant.)
The spacesuit designs are still at an early stage, although the companies emphasized that their units will be somewhat modular, as lightweight and flexible as possible, and will integrate feedback from astronauts and the flight community in assessing the best path forward for completion.
NASA officials said that the next generation of spacesuits will have a more flexible fit for a wider variety of body types, addressing a criticism of the spacesuits that agency astronauts use at the moment. NASA has conducted just one all-woman spacewalk to date, in 2019, largely due to the difficulty of swapping out the right-sized spacesuit parts in orbit.
The new suits will replace the agency's extravehicular mobility units (EMUs), two generations of which have been produced since 1983 to serve space shuttle and ISS missions. Both EMU versions were produced by a team led by ILC Dover and Collins Aerospace.
NASA said today that the EMUs are "aging." An example: Astronauts are unable to use EMUs on the space station for routine spacewalks at the moment, due to a spacesuit water leak in March that is still being investigated. (The cause will take time to determine, as the affected unit needs to be shipped to Earth for analysis; it's the most severe incident of its type since a resolved leaking issue in 2013.)
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
What ever happened to el cheapo billion dollar space suits?:
https://qz.com/2046840/a-1-billion-space-suit-is-holding-up-nasas-2024-moon-landing/
3.5 billion for suits in 2034? Probably will end up costing 70 billion and delivered in 3420.
The moon will be made off-limits for human exploration before the decade is out, so why bother?
Not going with Tesla...
Their space suits for transfer up to the ISS seem to do well. Why not let them take a crack at the EVA suits. I know they are more complicated but I would bet they could design a great and reliable eva suit.
They could probably even contrive a maternity suit — for front-hole birthing persons going into orbit.
You can’t pocket a few million if you give it to Tesla.
“The moon will be made off-limits for human exploration before the decade is out, so why bother”?
A brief explanation, please.
Massive government graft and corruption. Plain and simple.
Well see....
The Moon is made of cheese 🧀
and cheese 🧀 is bad for you
plus Global Warming is gonna make the Moon into a giant ball of fondue.
Now if we had some grilled steak and vegetables and some fondue forks that are 240,000 miles long .....
😆😁🤣
LOL!!
😁😁😁
“I know they are more complicated but I would bet they could design a great and reliable eva suit.”
Musk has terrible taste in 50s era fashion and design. Tintin, Indeed.
In another life time, perhaps. Right now Tesla and SpaceX are on the government s..t list. Great design and reliable is what we all want, but government wants expensive and design by committee; that approach ensures that various committees, agencies, lawyers, hoards of bureaucrats etc will have jobs when the suits malfunction: the worse the malfunction, the more jobs created.
“How many satellites, probes, rovers, and drones”
Great question—and it gives you a clue as to what is going on here...
The goal is to “make history” with the first woman on the moon, the first black on the moon, the first LGBT on the moon—theatre for the dumb masses while the contractors amass great wealth with kickbacks to the politicians.
Welcome to America, 2022 version.
Everything will be way over budget and decades late...but the lying will be on time every day.
Knowing how Musk is, he is probably way ahead in having his people design suits and it only makes sense because he is the only one that will get large numbers of people to the moon or mars.
Oh the humanity, they didn't fit women. Let's spend a few billion more.
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