Andrew Yee[_1_]
July 20th 07, 08:22 PM
News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
CONTACT
Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5402
July 16, 2007
One giant leap for space fashion: MIT team designs sleek, skintight
spacesuit
By Anne Trafton, News Office
In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they
wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give
astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the
pressure itself severely limit mobility.
Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering
systems at MIT, wants to change that.
Newman is working on a sleek, advanced suit designed to allow superior
mobility when humans eventually reach Mars or return to the moon. Her
spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your grandfather's spacesuit -- think more
Spiderman, less John Glenn.
Traditional bulky spacesuits "do not afford the mobility and locomotion
capability that astronauts need for partial gravity exploration missions. We
really must design for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic
capability," Newman says.
Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design firm,
Trotti and Associates, have been working on the project for about seven
years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for space travel, but demonstrate
what they're trying to achieve -- a lightweight, skintight suit that will
allow astronauts to become truly mobile lunar and Mars explorers.
Newman anticipates that the BioSuit could be ready by the time humans are
ready to launch an expedition to Mars, possibly in about 10 years. Current
spacesuits could not handle the challenges of such an exploratory mission,
Newman says.
A New Approach
Newman's prototype suit is a revolutionary departure from the traditional
model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts a force on the
astronaut's body to protect it from the vacuum of space, the suit relies on
mechanical counter-pressure, which involves wrapping tight layers of
material around the body. The trick is to make a suit that is skintight but
stretches with the body, allowing freedom of movement.
Over the past 40 years, spacesuits have gotten progressively heavier, and
they now weigh in at about 300 pounds. That bulk -- much of which is due to
multiple layers and the life support system coupled with the
gas-pressurization -- severely constrains astronauts' movements. About 70 to
80 percent of the energy they exert while wearing the suit goes towards
simply working against the suit to bend it.
"You can't do much bending of the arms or legs in that type of suit," Newman
says.
When an astronaut is in a micro-gravity environment (for example, doing a
spacewalk outside the International Space Station), working in such a
massive suit is manageable, but, as Newman says, "It's a whole different
ballgame when we go to the moon or Mars, and we have to go back to walking
and running, or loping."
Another advantage to her BioSuit is safety: if a traditional spacesuit is
punctured by a tiny meteorite or other object, the astronaut must return to
the space station or home base immediately, before life-threatening
decompression occurs. With the BioSuit, a small, isolated puncture can be
wrapped much like a bandage, and the rest of the suit will be unaffected.
Newman says the finished BioSuit may be a hybrid that incorporates some
elements of the traditional suits, including a gas-pressured torso section
and helmet. An oxygen tank can be attached to the back.
The MIT researchers are focusing on the legs and arms, which are challenging
parts to design. In the Man-Vehicle Lab at MIT, students test various
wrapping techniques, based on 3D models they've created of the human in
motion and how the skin stretches during locomotion, bending, climbing or
driving a rover.
Key to their design is the pattern of lines on the suit, which correspond to
lines of non-extension (lines on the skin that don't extend when you move
your leg). Those lines provide a stiff "skeleton" of structural support,
while providing maximal mobility.
To be worn in space, the BioSuit must deliver close to one-third the
pressure exerted by Earth's atmosphere, or about 30 kPa (kilopascals). The
current prototype suit exerts about 20 KPa consistently, and the researchers
have gotten new models up to 25 to 30 KPa.
Staying in Shape
The suits could also help astronauts stay fit during the six-month journey
to Mars. Studies have shown that astronauts lose up to 40 percent of their
muscle strength in space, but the new outfits could be designed to offer
varying resistance levels, allowing the astronauts to exercise against the
suits during a long flight to Mars.
Although getting the suits into space is the ultimate goal, Newman is also
focusing on Earth-bound applications in the short term, such as athletic
training or helping people walk.
The new BioSuit builds on ideas developed in the 1960s and 1970s by Paul
Webb, who first came up with the concept for a "space activity suit," and
Saul Iberall, who postulated the lines of non-extension. However, neither
the technology nor the materials were available then.
"Dr. Webb had a great idea, before its time. We're building on that work to
try to make it feasible," says Newman.
The project was initially funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced
Concepts.
RELATED LINKS:
* MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/
* Dava Newman
http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/www/people/dnewman/bio.html
* Jeffrey A. Hoffman
http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/people/hoffman.html
IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit1-enlarged.jpg (39KB)]
Dava Newman models her Biosuit--a sleek spacesuit that relies on mechanical
counter-pressure instead of using gas pressurization--on Henry Moore's
sculpture "Reclining Figure" on the MIT campus. Photo: Donna Coveney
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
CONTACT
Elizabeth A. Thomson, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-258-5402
July 16, 2007
One giant leap for space fashion: MIT team designs sleek, skintight
spacesuit
By Anne Trafton, News Office
In the 40 years that humans have been traveling into space, the suits they
wear have changed very little. The bulky, gas-pressurized outfits give
astronauts a bubble of protection, but their significant mass and the
pressure itself severely limit mobility.
Dava Newman, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and engineering
systems at MIT, wants to change that.
Newman is working on a sleek, advanced suit designed to allow superior
mobility when humans eventually reach Mars or return to the moon. Her
spandex and nylon BioSuit is not your grandfather's spacesuit -- think more
Spiderman, less John Glenn.
Traditional bulky spacesuits "do not afford the mobility and locomotion
capability that astronauts need for partial gravity exploration missions. We
really must design for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic
capability," Newman says.
Newman, her colleague Jeff Hoffman, her students and a local design firm,
Trotti and Associates, have been working on the project for about seven
years. Their prototypes are not yet ready for space travel, but demonstrate
what they're trying to achieve -- a lightweight, skintight suit that will
allow astronauts to become truly mobile lunar and Mars explorers.
Newman anticipates that the BioSuit could be ready by the time humans are
ready to launch an expedition to Mars, possibly in about 10 years. Current
spacesuits could not handle the challenges of such an exploratory mission,
Newman says.
A New Approach
Newman's prototype suit is a revolutionary departure from the traditional
model. Instead of using gas pressurization, which exerts a force on the
astronaut's body to protect it from the vacuum of space, the suit relies on
mechanical counter-pressure, which involves wrapping tight layers of
material around the body. The trick is to make a suit that is skintight but
stretches with the body, allowing freedom of movement.
Over the past 40 years, spacesuits have gotten progressively heavier, and
they now weigh in at about 300 pounds. That bulk -- much of which is due to
multiple layers and the life support system coupled with the
gas-pressurization -- severely constrains astronauts' movements. About 70 to
80 percent of the energy they exert while wearing the suit goes towards
simply working against the suit to bend it.
"You can't do much bending of the arms or legs in that type of suit," Newman
says.
When an astronaut is in a micro-gravity environment (for example, doing a
spacewalk outside the International Space Station), working in such a
massive suit is manageable, but, as Newman says, "It's a whole different
ballgame when we go to the moon or Mars, and we have to go back to walking
and running, or loping."
Another advantage to her BioSuit is safety: if a traditional spacesuit is
punctured by a tiny meteorite or other object, the astronaut must return to
the space station or home base immediately, before life-threatening
decompression occurs. With the BioSuit, a small, isolated puncture can be
wrapped much like a bandage, and the rest of the suit will be unaffected.
Newman says the finished BioSuit may be a hybrid that incorporates some
elements of the traditional suits, including a gas-pressured torso section
and helmet. An oxygen tank can be attached to the back.
The MIT researchers are focusing on the legs and arms, which are challenging
parts to design. In the Man-Vehicle Lab at MIT, students test various
wrapping techniques, based on 3D models they've created of the human in
motion and how the skin stretches during locomotion, bending, climbing or
driving a rover.
Key to their design is the pattern of lines on the suit, which correspond to
lines of non-extension (lines on the skin that don't extend when you move
your leg). Those lines provide a stiff "skeleton" of structural support,
while providing maximal mobility.
To be worn in space, the BioSuit must deliver close to one-third the
pressure exerted by Earth's atmosphere, or about 30 kPa (kilopascals). The
current prototype suit exerts about 20 KPa consistently, and the researchers
have gotten new models up to 25 to 30 KPa.
Staying in Shape
The suits could also help astronauts stay fit during the six-month journey
to Mars. Studies have shown that astronauts lose up to 40 percent of their
muscle strength in space, but the new outfits could be designed to offer
varying resistance levels, allowing the astronauts to exercise against the
suits during a long flight to Mars.
Although getting the suits into space is the ultimate goal, Newman is also
focusing on Earth-bound applications in the short term, such as athletic
training or helping people walk.
The new BioSuit builds on ideas developed in the 1960s and 1970s by Paul
Webb, who first came up with the concept for a "space activity suit," and
Saul Iberall, who postulated the lines of non-extension. However, neither
the technology nor the materials were available then.
"Dr. Webb had a great idea, before its time. We're building on that work to
try to make it feasible," says Newman.
The project was initially funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced
Concepts.
RELATED LINKS:
* MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/
* Dava Newman
http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/www/people/dnewman/bio.html
* Jeffrey A. Hoffman
http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/people/hoffman.html
IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/biosuit1-enlarged.jpg (39KB)]
Dava Newman models her Biosuit--a sleek spacesuit that relies on mechanical
counter-pressure instead of using gas pressurization--on Henry Moore's
sculpture "Reclining Figure" on the MIT campus. Photo: Donna Coveney