Wow, talk about more functional design! A spacesuit that doesn’t look like you’re wearing horribly cumbersome elephant’s pyjamas or a really cheesy robot costume. The new BioSuit, designed by MIT astronautics professor Dava Newman, gives the wearer greater flexibility, mobility, and comfort, all very important factors when spending hours doing EVA (ExtraVehicular Activity = spacewalk) work building the International Space Station and other tasks. Less cumbersome also means that a person can move more naturally, which is simply good ergonomics; wearing the suit will be less fatiguing and straining to the body. (More information about the suit design at her lab’s Web site.) Personally, I would think all that snug pressure would be comforting as well. That it looks spiffy too is just the icing on the cake.
(Is it just me, or does that also look like a great design for fencing gear? And is that a Henry Moore sculpture she’s perched on?)
