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Mars manned mission: MIT professor developing cheaper, more practical space suit
- Published_at:2012-10-01
- Category:Science & Technology
- Channel:NMANewsDirect
- tags:
- description: A skin-tight suit designed being developed by a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Italian motorcyclist gear company could be a cheaper, more utilitarian alternative to today's bulky gas-filled space suits. The BioSuit applies pressure to the body mechanically with form-fitting fabric made from elastic polymers and a "skeleton" of filaments that maintain the structure of the suit while allowing for natural movement. Current space suits use gas to maintain a pressurized environment, which makes them bulky and hard to move around in. An astronaut on the surface of Mars would need to wear a pressurized suit to survive, because Mars' atmospheric pressure is less than 1 percent of Earth's. Without a pressurized suit, blood in the astronaut's body would congeal and tissue would expand. Current space suits cost as much as $20 million. The BioSuit could cost one-tenth that amount. The BioSuit is being developed by Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics, astronautics and engineering systems at MIT, with a grant from NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts. Newman is working with industrial designers Trotti & Associates, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and motorcyclist gear company Dainese, of Molvena, Italy.
| ranked in date | views | likes | Comments | ranked in country (#position) |
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| 2013-07-06 | 1,942 | 11 | 0 |
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| 2013-07-07 | 2,381 | 11 | 0 |
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