Elon Musk said worked on SpaceX new space suit for 4 years
(ORDO NEWS) — Although NASA astronauts Bob Benken and Doug Hurley were unable to start on Wednesday due to bad weather, they got the opportunity to show the world the new SpaceX space suits.
The first launch was postponed to Saturday and will be the first when NASA astronauts fly in an American spacecraft since 2011. This will also be the first time that they fly on a commercially developed spacecraft.
The company Ilona Mask collaborated with NASA in the development of black-and-white, skin-tight suits, as well as the entire spacecraft called Crew Dragon. Costumes are designed to connect to the capsule seats.
“I personally spent a lot of time – it took us three, almost four years to design these costumes that look good and work well,” Musk said during a NASA live broadcast on Wednesday.
Space suits are essentially complex, personified spaceships in the shape of a man – they should be convenient for astronauts during long flights inside small spacecraft, protecting them from changes in oxygen levels and pressure.
Musk has focused on making SpaceX suits since the company began designing them several years ago.
The New York Times reported that Musk used Jose Fernandez, costume designer for superhero movies such as Batman vs. Superman, Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, to create this prototype.
Fernandez told Bleep magazine in 2016 that Musk wanted the costumes to stand out. “When people put on this suit, he wants them to look better than without him, like a tuxedo,” said Fernandez. “You look heroic about it.”
Musk developed this idea on Wednesday.
“You see spacesuits in films – they look good, they work poorly,” he said. “You can make a spacesuit that works, but doesn’t look very good, because it’s essentially a spacesuit that should help you survive in a vacuum.”
But Musk said he wants to develop a spacesuit to inspire children to become astronauts and put on this uniform themselves, ”he said.
“Everyone should be thrilled that this is done by people, for people,” Musk added.
The costumes were made in Hawthorne, California, in the same building as the SpaceX rockets. Each given an astronaut. They are designed as a unit with specialized parts.
“One connection point on the thigh of the suit connects life support systems, including air and power connections,” a NASA press release said. “The helmet is custom-made using 3D printing technology and includes built-in valves, visor retraction and fixation mechanisms, and microphones in the helmet design.”
The suits are equipped with gloves compatible with the touch screen, which allow astronauts to fly the Crew Dragon, whose control panel works only with the touch screen.
These spacesuits are different from those that are worn to go beyond the space station. For these purposes, astronauts use special NASA suits that are designed to work from 8 to 10 hours in a complete vacuum, similar to space, and protect astronauts from dangerous radiation.
SpaceX space suits have already been tested twice.
One was on a mannequin at the wheel of Tesla, which SpaceX launched into space on its Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018.
The other was on a mannequin named Ripley, who was flying aboard the Dragon when he completed his test flight with Demo-1 last year.
But Benken and Hurley will be the first people to experience costumes while flying in space.
NASA astronauts heading to the space station wore Russian Falcon suits, as the US has been buying space on the Soyuz spacecraft since 2011.
But this mission is designed to restore NASA’s ability to launch its own astronauts from the United States.
This is part of the NASA Commercial Crew Program, a partnership between a space agency and private spacecraft companies that can deliver astronauts to and from a space station.
Over the past six decades, NASA has used at least eight types of spacesuits.
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