Space suit

Spacesuits, Ranked

Astronauts have worn many different outfits over the years—they haven't all had the right stuff.

Unfinished Spacesuits Means Astronaut Moon Landing in 2024 Is Almost Certainly Not Going to Happen

The high-tech spacesuit needed for the Artemis missions won’t be ready until at least 2025, according to an auditor's report.

For Just $125,000, You Too Can Take a Balloon Ride to Space

Liftoffs won't begin until 2024, but the six-hour trip features a 360-view that's out of this world.

Future Astronauts Might Walk, Not Hop, On The Moon

Why do astronauts hop on the moon? After carefully watching hapless volunteers use a treadmill under variable gravity, researchers think it had more to do with the stiffness of spacesuits than anything else. Harrison Schmitt run-hopping on the moon during Apollo 17. Image credit: NASA The experiments took place during flights in an unusual trajectory.…

Latest Fashion for the Stylish Astronaut

After popular vote, NASA has a new futuristic skin for their Z-2 space suit design. Incorporating electroluminescent wire and exposed rotating bearings, this is the technology-themed design. The design will be used for terrestrial testing, so get ready for some awesome photo-shoots. What makes the Z-2 different? First surface-specific planetary mobility suit to be tested…

This Week in Space

Ready to lose time to all the space-related stories we didn’t cover this week? Bras and space suits: How Playtex won the crucial design contest against military companies (with seriously cool photos!) Road trip to the ALMA Observatory Caroline Herschel, Comet-Hunter IPCC Climate Report translated into Snakes & Ladders game 2011 flashback: the ESA astronauts-in-caves…

The Continuing Adventures of Major Matt Mason

Major Matt Mason was a Mattel toy inspired by the incredibly cartoonish space suit designed by Allyn B. “Happ” Hazard. Major Mason was the must-have toy for space-loving geeks of a certain age, and he’s come out of storage for a photo shoot. Major Mason decked out in an early space suit design, returning a…

Here’s a little-known fact: You know the spacesuit Neil Armstrong wore on the first moonwalk? Turns out that suit was made by a bra manufacturer in Dover, Deleware. As Andrew Chaikin explains at Smithsonian, the seamstresses who hand-stitched NASA’s spacesuits were used to devoting their needlework to an entirely different kind of rubber garment. Top…

Vintage NASA spacesuit photos are delightfully trippy

Seriously, is this what space psychosis looks like? Writes stacythinx: These vintage NASA space suit test photos from the San Diego Air and Science Museum Archive on Flickr look like they could have been shot on the set of a music video. Taken from a music video, or the mind of someone suffering from a…

How to Put on a Space Suit

If you think wriggling into your cycling lycra or trussing yourself up in a tux is tricky, think again. Donning an astronaut’s space suit is no mean feat—as this video shows. Norman Chan and Will Smith from Tested visited NASA to learn exactly how astronauts dress. There are highs—we get to see, for instance, the…

Wish I Was Rich As The Stars

I could spent an extremely large amount money at the upcoming Space History Sale at the Bonhams. I especially love this lot of space suit development photographs.

NASA’s Next-Gen Space Duds: The Constellation Space Suit System

The Constellation Space Suit System (CSSS) is NASA’s first major redesign to the iconic space suit in 40 years, and it looks like it’s designed to be able to handle the next 40. The CSSS is helmed by Oceaneering International, and has a focus on versatility above all else. It’s a modular design, with one…

Heated Sleep Suit Uses Same Technology as Spacesuits, for Insomniacs, Not Astronauts

Dutch researchers have come up with a heated sleep suit that could help insomniacs and older people who suffer from disturbed sleeping patterns. A system of micropipes filled with water warms the patient, increasing their body temperature by just 0.4 degrees Celsius. At 35.4ºC, the body shifts from nocturnal wakefulness to a deeper sleep because,…

Revolutionary Biosuit Could Be the New Face of Space Wear

A professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering systems at MIT has come up with a revolutionary new space suit that she hopes will take the place of the traditional, bulky number worn by astronauts over the past four decades. Although still only a prototype, Dava Newman’s spandex and nylon Biosuit will offer space travellers…