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Under Armour will make the space suits for Virgin Galactic flights
When Virgin Galactic sends people to space, it plans to send them style. The privacy aerospace company announced today that Under Armour will be designing and producing the space suits and footwear that will be worn by passengers and pilots during future commercial trips to space. The apparel company will also create physical training programs for astronauts to undergo in preparation for the flights.
Here's a full-length look at SpaceX's spacesuit
Elon Musk dropped a carefully cropped look at the SpaceX suit for astronauts on his Instagram a couple of weeks ago, and came back with a more revealing picture today. Modeled in front of the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft, it gives a better idea of what we might be able to expect. It's far sleeker than what we've seen in use from NASA until now, and as Musk noted previously, it apparently actually works.
Boeing's spacesuit is light, cool and flexible
Virgin isn't the only company determined to make conventional spacesuits seem like ungainly beasts. Boeing has unveiled the spacesuit it wants to use for people aboard its Starliner CST-100 vessels, and they promise to be far more livable than the clunky spacewear you've seen before. It's roughly 40 percent lighter than previous suits, with layers that should keep astronauts cooler than usual. Wearers also won't feel quite so trapped or claustrophobic -- zippers help them transition from sitting to standing, and there's a wide plastic visor that should improve peripheral vision.
SpaceX had a superhero costume designer make a spacesuit
SpaceX is fond of making technology that looks good, and apparently that extends as far as astronaut gear. Thanks to both a Tested video (at the 12:09 mark) and a recently highlighted Bleep interview, we now know that well-known costume designer Jose Fernandez has crafted a spacesuit for SpaceX. Yes, the same man who clothed superheroes in Batman vs. Superman and Captain America: Civil War is also contributing to the growth of modern spaceflight. You won't get to see the suit until sometime in the next year, but the Bleep chat reveals that SpaceX's Elon Musk wanted the design to be "stylish" and "heroic." This probably won't look much like NASA's utilitarian Z-2, then.
Virgin Galactic taps fashion brand Y-3 for space suit designs
If you set out to do something incredible, you should do it looking your best. For Virgin Galactic, the commercial spaceflight venture from Richard Branson, that means teaming up with fashion brand Y-3 to create apparel for its future pilots, astronauts and on-the-ground team operations members. In case you're not familiar, Y-3 is a collaboration between Adidas and Yohji Yamamoto, a decorated and well-respected Japanese designer.
This is NASA's new Z-2 spacesuit
The follow-up to NASA's rather Toy Story-esque Z-1 spacesuit was decided this week, thanks to an online poll. Three options were up for the task of being the next cover layer to protect the Z-2, and after garnering 63 percent of the vote, the "Technology" option will be part of the agency's new threads. An unadvertised underlying theme continues as renders of this suit certainly have a bit of a Tron aesthetic. Now, NASA engineers will move on to vacuum chamber, Neutral Buoyancy Lab, and rocky Martian surface tests which are all expected to commence this fall. There are plenty of features that make this an improvement over previous models, so let's take a closer look at the details.
