New materials and designs could allow outer-space travelers to move more freely.
One day, moving around in outer space—and walking on Mars—could
become a whole lot more comfortable for astronauts, thanks to the
innovative techniques being developed by an aeronautics professor at
MIT.
“The BioSuit—the one that gets a lot of media coverage—is a concept
no one has seen before, and we have been working on it for a long time,”
said Dava Newman, professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and
Engineering Systems at MIT. “We are doing great research. If we were
fully funded, we could have it working in two years, no problem.”
Newman has been working on various types of wearable outer-space gear
with MIT students and designers from around the world for more than a
decade, focusing specifically on three forms of aeronautics spacesuits:
The BioSuit, an exercise suit, and a layer of material that can be worn
inside of the typical bulky space gear that NASA astronauts have grown
accustomed to during space missions.
Newman made waves at a recent TED talk in San Francisco last week, TED Women, where she showed off examples of the work she has been doing for the last 12 years.
According to Newman, the BioSuit,
which captured the audience’s attention, is an example of “new wearable
technologies” being developed at MIT’s Extra-Vehicular Activity Lab
(EVA). The suit system could one day provide life support for astronauts
in an atmosphere like the one on Mars by relying on the “mechanical
counter-pressure” built into the suit, where pressure is applied to the
entire body through a tight-fitting material. The suit is also equipped
with a helmet to cover an explorer’s head.
“You have to apply a third of an atmosphere to keep someone alive in
the vacuum of space. With polymers or stretchy elastic, you can get
about 20 percent there, but we have to get to 30 percent to make it
work. So now, using our active material, we have nailed the extra 10
percent so we can fully pressurize the suit,” said Newman. “When we go
to another planet, we could definitely have a useable flight system
going.”
Newman said the greatest problem with the standard suits that have
allowed astronauts to survive in outer space for so many missions is
their rigidity, which reduces their mobility both inside a spacecraft,
and when performing repair work in space.
She said the air needed to supply the necessary pressure to the
astronauts essentially turns them into “stiff balloons” that make
movement difficult and tiring.
Her form-fitting BioSuit could one day allow space explorers to move
“freely” and with more agility when performing their work. “Work in
active materials is one of our big focuses,” said Newman.
The suit would also potentially be safer than a traditional
suit. Newman said an abrasion or puncture in a bulky space suit would
cause a major emergency, but a small breach in the BioSuit could be
easily repaired.
While the idea is stellar, the money to launch the suit forward has
caused the project to slow down a little. For years Newman said she was
receiving funding from NASA, from 2000 through 2005. “Without funding,
we are sort of working on this one student at a time,” she said,
referencing the help she receives from those enrolled at MIT. “We have a
pretty extensive plan to get to a flight system for the BioSuit, and if
that were in place and funded, in two years of full-on work, we could
be ready.”
In the meantime, focus has been shifted toward some of her other designs.
Newman said by 2015, an exercise counter-measure suit, which can be
worn inside of a space vessel, will go to launch with the European Space
Agency to the International Space Station for a short mission. “The
blue suit, it’s great,” she said. “The suit recreates body weight
loading. It’s basically like your—it’s comfortable enough you can wear
it all day, but you also get the benefit of the Gravity Loading Counter
Measure Suit.”
Newman said the “blue suit” helps offset “body loading” that’s lost
when in space, due to the loss of gravity, and helps work the
muscles. “Typically, a person will experience 30 percent muscle atrophy
and 40 percent muscle loss on a longer mission,” she said. “They have to
be very custom fit.”
Below is an illustration that explains some of the technology involved in bringing the BioSuit to life.
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