The Astronaut wore Prada – and a blast from Michael Bloomberg Private sector space outfit Axiom and Italian fashion house Prada last week revealed the space suit that will be used on the Artemis III mission. Sorry, it's not a space suit. It's an "Extravehicular Mobility Unit" – because it works just as well for eight-hour spacewalks or a two-hour stroll in the ultra-frigid conditions …
Indeed. Took NASA a very long time to work out there were only a couple of photos of Neil Armstrong on the moon because the two suits were essentially identical. Later missions used the red stripe for the commander, Shuttle EVAs assigned the red stripe to one of the astronauts leaving the second one plain. On a few occasions there were three astronauts on EVA and the third wore a blue stripe on their suit.
Elbow patches and Tweed.
In our case he was a maths teachers who had been a navigator in WW2 bombers on missions over Germany. He use to regale his classes with tales of how they would navigate to their targets (giving the trigonometry used) and the early radar they were using.
The thing that got us was his heritage was as German as you could get even by 1939 Reich standards and in all likelihood his family would have been interned here during the previous stoush. In hindsight his people might have been socialists or communists/marxists who weren't particularly welcome in the Kaiser's empire.
I also knew a maths teacher who was a navigator in Lancasters in WWII, it must have been a common assignment. He was very tall though, and the navigator's table area was too cramped for him, so he switched role to bomb aimer because he could stretch out his long legs while lying down. He was shot down twice, the first time over Allied territory, the second time behind enemy lines so he spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.
..., 3, 2, 1 - the non binary alphabet aren't going to like that. ;)
If I were to spend 8 hours in one of these garments (with included* "life support systems...") I would like to know up front how a chap would siphon the python? (I leave it to the ladies to supply their own euphemism.)
Techicolor Birdsong is never going to be pretty in a helmet - Prada or not. I guess the tinted visor is to spare the wearer's companions the nauseous spectacle.
Looking at the photographs the suits do seem to have the design flare of the nation that gave the world Ferrari and Maserati. Prada though - can one wear heels in this suit, I wonder?
* not as though oxygen is an optional extra like heated seats. Also not wildly keen or CO2 scrubbing.
If I were to spend 8 hours in one of these garments (with included* "life support systems...") I would like to know up front how a chap would siphon the python? (I leave it to the ladies to supply their own euphemism.)
I once considered a career change into commercial diving and did some training to use an ADS (Atmospheric Diving Suit) that had similar challenges. Which was also quite fascinating and over it's development included catheters, a kinda open-ended condom and then just adult diapers. In which I also learned that Prince Alberts for attaching to tubes was an urban myth. Plus handy advice, like don't eat curries because having to do a #2 means smells, which may lead to vomiting, which inside a helmet is.. bad.
But guessing NASA has better diapers, and better ways of dealing with.. waste and cleanup. I think I'd want a suiting area with its own shower/cleaning facilities on a seperate filtered air supply to the rest of the station or moon base.
Bloomberg said that Artemis should be replaced with robotic missions because SLS and Gateway are expensive. The entire point of Artemis is to be expensive and if congress cannot waste billions sending humans to the Moon then they will find a way to waste billions sending robots instead. The problem is congress and fixing that is more difficult than sending humans or robots to the Moon.
The Senate Lunch System is nothing more than a pork barrel that should not fly.
There's a lot of that around. SpacX should have been on the Moon a couple of years ago, has a supposedly fixed cost contract that it's already spent, and Starship is nowhere close to being human rated or usuable.
Although NASA promised a 2024 Moon landing the only person expected to be gullible enough to believe it was the president. The current year for Artemis 3 is 2026 according to NASA and 2028 according to NASA's Inspector General. The contract for HLS only specifies no earlier than 2024. It is a fixed price contract based on milestones. Paydays only happen when NASA says SpaceX have achieved a milestone. Normally such contracts are loaded more heavily on the front to cover research and development. Congress did not want the Luna lander being ready before SLS/Orion so the only allocated half the required funds. SpaceX bid half the required amount with the other half coming from their own pocket*. They also kept the early payments low because they knew NASA did not have enough money. SpaceX have not yet received most of the money so the cannot have spent it. The contract is fixed price and will almost certainly remain that way as it did for Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon. The simplest way to charge extra on a firm fixed price contract is to hire Boeing's outstanding lobbyists.
Blue origin also have excellent lobbyists. They convinced congress to pay for a half a second Lunar lander. (Jeff Bezos is paying for the other half.)
The meaning of "Human rated" depends on what is being human rated. Crew Dragon and Starliner are held to a higher standard than Orion. According to the contracts, Artemis HLS's do not have to demonstrate returning from the Moon before landing crew. This is because only Starship is capable of returning without a crew and NASA wanted bids from more than one supplier. SpaceX plan to have their uncrewed HLS to go back to NRHO from the Moon even though that extra step is not a milestone. Blue Origin plan to have astronauts unbolt bits of their lander so it is light enough to get back to NRHO.
* Slightly cheating here: Starship HLS has large amount in common with the giant Starlink launcher and the Mars colony ship that SpaceX were doing anyway.
They convinced congress to pay for a half a second Lunar lander. (Jeff Bezos is paying for the other half.)
Depending on what happens in a couple of weeks, SpacX may have a very well placed lobbyist..
* Slightly cheating here: Starship HLS has large amount in common with the giant Starlink launcher and the Mars colony ship that SpaceX were doing anyway.
Yep. I think it's a bit of a goal problem. Like funding to put boots on the Moon. Great, we've been there, done that. What I think we should be doing is being able to stay there.. So a lunar base that can produce stuff, and making Mars missions easier. Or a decent sized space station that can act as a transfer station. ThunderF00t has a video that covers this with specualtion about the number of launches needed to create the great gas station in the sky. But that's a long way off and is going to cost a lot of money. It would also be neat if we could manufacture fuel on the Moon and lob that back towards a transfer station.
Meanwhile, China and India are doing their own thing, and Russia and other nations might join in. Seems like politics and short-sighted decision makers might result in the US (and by extension Europe) getting left behind.
I am not sure which of the pair would do more damage. Musk has just broken federal campaign finance law. The $10,000 fine is nothing to him but we can at least hope for 5 years in prison. They are not best friends. Perhaps the presidential pardon will cost real money.
Any real progress towards a Lunar base will require hardware that makes SLS look even more blatantly useless. Congress will not tolerate anything of the kind until they have a new giga-project up and running to shovel dollars to their friends.
The Moon has a crippling shortage of hydrogen and carbon. The fuel for a trip to Mars will come from Earth and be stored in LEO. I can see the value in Lunar LOX for shuffling tourists between NRHO and the Moon but getting it down to LEO will bump up the price close to LOX from Earth. We will need the hardware to stabilise and the real costs to become known before we can work out if Lunar LOX has any value for getting to Mars.
I am not sure which of the pair would do more damage. Musk has just broken federal campaign finance law.
Allegedly..
The Moon has a crippling shortage of hydrogen and carbon.
But water has been detected at the north and south poles. Which needs exploration, then figuring out ways to extract and crack it because it'll need H2 and O2, and much the same with Mars. Plus I've read a few different proposals about where best to build a transfer station given the different energy costs. But much work ahead, along with politics if one nation or another decides to occupy and monopolise resource rich or critical locations. Plus I guess after much more exploration & planning, there may be practical vacuum engines like ion drive. Challenge with that seems to be trading fuel costs for flight time, which is problematic given radiation exposure.
"there may be practical vacuum engines like ion drive. Challenge with that seems to be trading fuel costs for flight time, which is problematic given radiation exposure."
Whatever technology is used for the engines, they will have to be supplied with energy in some form. Nuclear is far more dense than anything else, but development stopped a long time ago on space engines that use nuclear propulsion. Going past the moon with humans is going to take much more engineering than is going to happen in the next couple of decades that it's not worth trying to accommodate it in any plans yet. The biggest question is the humans holding up for those trips. Micro G is bad, but are the issues linear or is 1/6 G good enough to mitigate the majority of low G health problems? There's only one way to find out. Can we come up with active radiation shielding? Barrier shielding is too massive on space ships.
"Depending on what happens in a couple of weeks, SpacX may have a very well placed lobbyist.."
Unless it's to his personal benefit, no I don't think he will. I suspect Musk will be left by the wayside, as Trump is wont to do with his "friends" when he no longer has a use for them.
"They also kept the early payments low because they knew NASA did not have enough money. SpaceX have not yet received most of the money so the cannot have spent it. "
SpaceX was specifically told what money was available after a NASA budget reduction while Blue and Dynetics were not. Of the nearly $3bn award for the first contract, SpaceX has received approximately $1.8bn according to government reports.
"This is because only Starship is capable of returning without a crew and NASA wanted bids from more than one supplier. SpaceX plan to have their uncrewed HLS to go back to NRHO from the Moon even though that extra step is not a milestone. Blue Origin plan to have astronauts unbolt bits of their lander so it is light enough to get back to NRHO."
What? The lander is not expected to return to Earth. It's to remain in lunar orbit, be replenished and used again and again. Blue is not planning to have parts unbolted.
It would be more prudent to have a separate ascent stage as was done with Apollo so if there is undercarriage damage to the lander, it won't prevent the return of the astronauts from the surface. It would also be interesting to provide a new descent stage on following missions that also resupplies the ascent stage until there's a time when an improved landing site can be constructed that can support a craft that doesn't separate.
I believe it was science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle who made this same argument decades ago. From the perspective of pure exploration, it's hard to argue the point: we can surely build automated robots which can explore the lunar surface more efficiently than and without the resource needs of humans. When it comes to building things in space, however, I wonder how long it will take to create robots which can construct orbital factories, docking stations, etc. Finally, of course, there's the issue of the human imagination: for most people, the idea of human astronauts is much more dramatically compelling than that of robots doing the work. One could also argue that, if we lose momentum now, the prospect of humans ever going to the moon again, much less beyond, becomes much more distant.
I respectfully beg to differ on the "human imagination" count.
I obviously only speak for myself, but the science and inspiration that has come from the sundry Mars rovers and landers far outweighs the putative inspiration provided by any astro/cosmo/taikonaut bouncing around on the moon or trundling around Mars.
I'd far prefer the billions being sunk into flying humans to the moon be spent on Mars sample return to complete the mission of the Perserverance rover,
If you want inspiration, just think about the Ingenuity copter. We, as a species, flew a helicopter on Mars! Not once but dozens of times. If that doesn't inspire. . . well what can I say.
"One could also argue that, if we lose momentum now, the prospect of humans ever going to the moon again, much less beyond, becomes much more distant."
If by "we" you mean the USA, then yes, that's a likely outcome if they abandon human Moon missions. China seems to be planning something of their own though. Whether that's just because the USA currently have ambitions and they feel the need to demonstrate they are just as advanced or would still continue with a proposed Moon-base in the absence of a US initiative is another matter, I suppose a lot depends on if it all starts while Xi is still in power and what may happen after he's gone.
A popular fact is that Neil Armstrong's suit was designed by Playtex, the bra manufacturer. I'm sure it gave him a lot of confidence and excited any nearby clangers. So there is precedence for fashion houses getting involved.
I think Bloomberg is missing the point slightly. It's about things that cannot be measured in spreadsheets. Small and big children getting excited and thinking maybe they could walk on the moon one day. People being excited again about space and space exploration being cool enough to secure funding for pure science missions. It's impossible to list all the effects of the 1960s moon landings. I think the world would look very different today if they hadn't happened. OK it probably made the small percentage of "we're number 1!" US folk a bit more intolerable but it gave energy and excitement and the feeling of limitless possibilities that give civilisation a driving force. Yes robots are cheaper but they are also boring, I'm a geek so I do get excited about remote-control cars and helicopters on Mars but I think most people don't care. Put some people on Mars and it will be very different. Apart from the intangible good feelings and excitement, I expect the 1960s moon landings had a positive effect on the economy as well. So maybe it will end up paying for itself but in ways you can't prove causation.
> I expect the 1960s moon landings had a positive effect on the economy as well
Considering the Apollo Guidance Computer used 60% of the world's IC production for a couple years, it sure as hell jumpstarted that.
We might have had ICs 10-15 years later but I have a feeling they would have been a bunch of different proprietary competing "standards" that would have seriously held things back.
I remember when companies were PROUD to be part of Apollo. Look at the '60s era magazines and there were lots of ads saying "Joe's Widgets: Part of the Apollo Lunar Module"
This country went from landing on the Moon to "This bag is not a toy!" and arguing about evolution in 40 years. I don't have much hope.
You left out teflon and Tang.
Regarding standards, there's this thing called MilSpec that probably had more influence in component standardization.
In fact, I suspect the majority of advances are spinoffs from the miltary, not the Apollo program, including this here thing called the Internet.
"Starship may soon out-perform the hardware created for Artemis"
SpaceX starship development is funded in part by NASA for the Artemis project. I would hope if Starship exceed its current goals it would be benefical to thé whole project. Unfortunately it's likely going in the other direction... NASA will have to deal with delay and short commings.
Yeah, at first glance it doesn't really look all that different to the Apollo suits. I suppose function defines form in this case and apart for trim colours, there's not really a lot you can do visually. Primary function is to keep the wearer alive while minimising the overall mass, exactly what the Apollo suits had to do :-)
Internally, of course, decades of materials science R&D along with advances in electronics and engineering technique probably mean the insides are vastly improved.
Downvote for implying that looking "gay" is bad - what consenting adults do in their bedrooms is their own business and nobody else's unless someone is getting hurt.
I don't care if someone is straight, gay, mono, bi, or even robo-plastic sexual at home. All I care about is whether they can do the job required.
I was getting excited of the fashion possibilities of that garment... until I got to the bottom of the article, when I saw the price. But maybe, just maybe, if we remove all the unnecessary life support junk, switch to a fast-fashion fabric... I guess we could eliminate the helmet as well.
I'll be accepting investors any time now. Gotta think out of the box here!
Is the $1 billion for a single suit, or a set of suits?
Using an inflation calculator, $1 billion dollars in 2024 = $123 million in 1970 dollars
Doing a bit of searching on the internet, it appears a single Moon suit cost between $12 and $20 million, based on the year (inflation was a thing in the late 1960s - early 1970s).
Assuming $1 billion is for a set of suits, say, somewhere between 2 and 6 (depending on number of missions), then, the price seems to be ballpark (well, at least "order of magnitude") with Apollo.
Although, one wonders, with those arm sockets which seem to thrust the arms forward and up (which look similar to deep sea "hard suits" as well as artists' conception drawings of Mars suits), maybe Playtex had an influence in these, as well?
The Axiom EMU Spacesuit testing is unlikely able to reach full certification by the deadline of 2026.
SpaceX's EVA Suit has already been proven on the Polaris Dawn mission EVA. I wouldn't put it past Spacex to upgrade their EVA suit to an EMU suit in pretty short order.
Funnily enough, current SpaceX and NASA IVA suits aren't compatible in connections, so if the shit hits the fan in NRHO orbit, either on Orion, Gateway or Starship, someone will be well and truly spaced.
A bit like trying to plug into an airline armrest sound socket with your own headphones, but probably with more deadly consequences.
I remember the Playtex advertisements from the 1980's, being a fascinated early teenager for such ads.
I think the byline went, "Whatever you do, wherever you are, Playtex has the bra for the way you are"
2020's rebrand for LBGTQI+ Spacesuits:
"Whatever you do, wherever you are, Axiom has the suit for the way you are"
(batteries not included)
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