Maat wrote:Ah well, the NA$A Z1 has already been superseded, apparently
ILC Dover wins NASA contract for new space suit design
Delaware firm will design next space suit
Apr. 30, 2013
ILC Dover has received a $4.4 million contract from NASA to design, manufacture and test a next-generation space suit.
The current space suit, designed by ILC in the late 1970s, was designed mainly for space shuttle missions, and later used at the International Space Station, said Phil Spampinato, director of technology development partnerships at ILC.
That suit was built for “micro-gravity” environments, where people working under weightless conditions use their legs mainly to anchor themselves, instead of for walking.
But NASA is now looking to go to Mars, and may consider returning to the moon. This would require suits built for people to walk in, Spampinato said. Those environments have some gravity, although less than on Earth, he said. ...
[more at http://www.delawareonline.com/article/2 ... uit-design
http://www.ilcdover.com/index.cfm?fusea ... typeID=165
May 20: http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil- ... esearchers
Must be for ease of, ahem, "training" in their POGO harness:hoi.polloi wrote:Why does a spacesuit need to resemble a mountaineering hoist?
Really?
More pics & small video at: http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/pogo.htm
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a12/a12.tvtrbls.html (bottom of page):-
116:29:48 Bean: There we go. Hey, you can really move around out here, Houston. That mobile POGO rig that we've got there, and also that one in the centrifuge. Man, it's just like this. You can just run and bounce just like you can on that POGO. It's a real good training device.
[Bean - "We did it two or three weeks before the flight. Came in on a Saturday or something and did it. Apparently I thought it was pretty good. It seems to me that, at the time, I didn't think it was that great. But, apparently, I think so here, which is a good comment."]