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Artemis moon suit designed by Axiom Space and Prada revealed in Milan
- almostnormal 2y agoIf white makes it easier to remove dust, then why are the parts that are most likely to get covered in dust gray? Also, the backpack look a bit bulky.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> If white makes it easier to remove dust, then why are the parts that are most likely to get covered in dust gray? Those look like knee/elbow pads. Probably a tougher material. > Also, the backpack look a bit bulky. Quite a bit smaller than the ones Apollo used, from the looks of it.
- mmooss 2y ago> Those look like knee/elbow pads. Probably a tougher material. But why grey? Color doesn't make them tougher.
- gary_0 2y ago> Also, the backpack look a bit bulky. Given that it's noticeably smaller than earlier spacesuits, and probably contains heavy-duty oxygen tanks, cooling and heating systems, a water supply, life-support monitoring, a honking big battery, communications systems, plus redundancies for safety... it's probably a huge accomplishment in miniaturization.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoThe color doesn’t matter for dust removal with a good enough illumination and imaging system.
- yard2010 2y agoThat made me think - wouldn't green be the best color for it? As in green screen?
- somethingsright 2y agoAny color can be used for greenscreen, and blue is often used as second preference to green. I am guessing green is used as that is the least occurring color on a character's clothes or objects in the household.
- mmooss 2y agoPer the OP: "The white material also helps mitigate lunar dust by making it easier to see on the fabric."
- bastawhiz 2y ago> the backpack look a bit bulky. Thankfully it's much easier to lug on the moon or in microgravity.
- airstrike 2y agoI'm a noob, but on coolness factor only, this looks kinda lame? I understand the SpaceX suits aren't rated for moonwalking but these also feel (to this layman's eyes) like the same suit we could make decades ago
- schneems 2y agoThese are a huge upgrade in flexability and comfort. Aesthetics are not ignored, but they are certainly deprioritized over functionality.
- airstrike 2y agoFair but it does say Prada on the label and they were revealed in the capital of fashion...
- schneems 2y agoOn reflection, I wish they had gone in for stronger comparisons. Shown old and new side by side and talked about where they kept things classic versus styled them up. I also think of some things like a white shirt and black tie will never look “new” but will always look good. I’m not sure how much of “it should look like how people think a spacious should look” played a part versus is accidental. They talked about white being functional. But did they have any choice in the matter? Could a subtle off white have been on the table? What elements of style were they allowed? Could they add extra seams? Or change angles or is it just that they slapped their logo on it? I’m genuinely curious on the details of the work.
- PeterCorless 2y agoAnything other than pure white starts absorbing light = heat = need for additional cooling. Such an aesthetic choice has actual ramifications for the wearer.
- schneems 2y ago
- anactofgod 2y agoFollowing in Playtex's footsteps: https://www.fastcompany.com/90375440/the-improbable-story-of-the-bra-maker-who-won-the-right-to-make-astronaut-spacesuits https://www.fastcompany.com/90375440/the-improbable-story-of...
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI wish these looked more futuristic. They sort of look wrinkly and a lot like the spacesuits we’ve always had. I don’t see what Prada brought to the aesthetics of this. That aside, wow NASA paid $228 million for these suits? That seems like a lot to me, but I don’t really know what’s involved either. Are the materials or manufacturing techniques new? I would think you don’t need to tool for this small scale manufacturing but could just make them by hand. But the article also mentions complex electronic systems like CO2 scrubbers and heat management. Are those bespoke or more likely to be off the shelf?
- beemo 2y agoHonestly 228M for something like a space suit doesn’t even seem excessive to me. Extreme security requirements together with extreme conditions make for an expensive combo. Electronics for these conditions are hardly ever off the shelf because of the harsh environment. If these suits fail it’s not only immediately life threatening for the astronauts, it would also be a huge embarrassment for the country. So if you still can pull off something like a moon landing, better do it right.
- piyh 2y agoEach suit is it's own mini spaceship. A lot goes into keeping someone alive and functional where instant death is surrounding you from all sides.
- Dalewyn 2y ago>I don’t see what Prada brought to the aesthetics of this. As a taxpayer whose tax dollars in part went into this, I am happy that precisely none of it went to aesthetics. Form resulting as a consequence of function is amazing, just look at any proper jet fighter or indeed the NASA spacesuits of olde; Bruce McCandless looked amazing in his iconic EVA photo.[1] If even a single tax cent goes directly to form over function, though? I will happily vote to defund such a waste of my tax dollars. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:STS41B-35-1613_-_Bruce_McCandless_II_during_EVA_(Retouched).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:STS41B-35-1613_-_Bruce_Mc...
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- jugg1es 2y agoso someone paid a ton of money for top tier designers to make a suit that looks essentially the same as the ones designed in the 80s.
- yard2010 2y agoThis is fashion. It doesn't matter what it looks like, only who made it or more accurately what everyone says on instagram.
- giraffe_lady 2y agohow much did you think it was going to cost for space suits? where do you go for your discount space suits
- tingtongtok 2y ago> where do you go for your discount space suits Boeing is selling a few right now - discounted price. Contact your nearest Boeing executive.
- raylad 2y agoRetro is very au courant.
- aunty_helen 2y agoIf that headline doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about Artemis… The sooner this program gets canned the better. Suppliers aren’t even pretending to give value for money anymore.
- systemvoltage 2y agoGreat article by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-17/michael-bloomberg-nasa-s-artemis-moon-mission-is-a-colossal-waste https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-17/michae...
- philwelch 2y agoArtemis probably is a boondoggle, but the headline isn’t necessarily an indication of that. The Apollo spacesuits were manufactured by Playtex, by the same seamstresses that made their bras at the time, supposedly because they were the most qualified to do the work. When it comes to manufacturing small quantities of high quality textiles (which is, in part, exactly what a spacesuit is), this is exactly the kind of business partnership that makes sense.
- ls612 2y agoReally most of Artemis is well run. They got Starship to provide their lander, they are aiming for Shakleton Crater where there is likely ice in the permanent shadows, they are just stuck with SLS for their human lifter because Congress said so. It will be comical seeing the little Orion spacecraft docking with the HLS, really a testament to how new space is leaving old space in the dustbin of history.
- philwelch 2y agoI’m not really convinced with the Lunar Gateway either, but we’ll see.
- dotnet00 2y agoThis is probably one of the better run parts of Artemis, considering that it's a fixed price milestone-based contract awarded after NASA realized they were getting nowhere on their own suit after spending 13 years working on them, with the OIG predicting each of those original suits would cost $500M with the way they were going. The least value for money parts are pretty much entirely SLS related, with most of them involving blank checks handed out to legacy contractors with no real consequences for poor performance.
- aphantastic 2y agoLot of people here talking trash on this probably don’t know the history or even current status of Prada. In short they are absolute top of the line when it comes to everything from the pattern work to the actual nuts and bolts of manufacturing this sort of thing. Any other company would very likely take more time and money to produce and inferior product.
- wtfwhateven 2y agoWhere can I read more about Prada's other ventures into this sort of thing?
- aphantastic 2y agoNovel pattern work and top of the line quality in manufacturing? Probably your local Prada boutique would be a good start. Or prada.com barring that.
- cen4 2y ago[flagged]
- aphantastic 2y agoYou missed the last sentence where I explicitly stated that other companies could produce similar products, but it’d very likely be more expensive and less functional? I’m sure we could spin up some other custom suit production facility, but it wouldn’t save us money vs using the existing fully in-house pipelines already battle-tested by the industry leaders.
- ok_dad 2y agoJust like most people don’t understand the inner workings of software, a lot of software engineers seem to not understand there’s deep layers of skill and technology beneath things that many would deem useless, like fashion. I’d like to see more crossover between science and “regular people stuff” like this.
- currymj 2y agoI think that the SpaceX EVA suits are just a little too sleek and modern yet bland. Like default Unreal Engine spacesuit assets. Pleasantly surprised to see these spacesuits look classic yet beautiful. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Italian fashion designers did a good job. I have no view on the technical merits of the suits or the program.
- card_zero 2y agoIf there's one place where it's important to look stylish, it's when you're floating alone in outer space.
- bastawhiz 2y agoOn the other hand, video of astronauts floating in space probably did more to get kids into STEM than most other things in the 20th century. The cultural appeal of space has a real impact on society.
- aphantastic 2y agoI was about to say the same. At a time when the plurality of kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up^, I can’t help but feel that more investment into the “cool factor” of STEM would not be misplaced. What kind of impact would kids across the nation seeing astronauts decked out in head to toe custom Prada have on the future of our domestic research&development efforts? It’s hard to quantify, but I imagine it has to be more than whatever the minuscule additional cost a bit of flair on the space suits might add to the program. https://www.statista.com/chart/31014/most-popular-future-jobs-with-united-states-teenagers/ https://www.statista.com/chart/31014/most-popular-future-job...
- anonzzzies 2y agoIs that the floating in space part and the robots and rockets surrounding it, or whatever the space suits look like? For now, space suits need to be safe and practical.
- ein0p 2y agoToo bad we aren’t going to the moon anytime soon: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-17/michael-bloomberg-nasa-s-artemis-moon-mission-is-a-colossal-waste https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-17/michae....