For the last seven years, MIT engineers have been designing a new, slimmer spacesuit that features full range of motion for the astronaut — one small step for space fashion, one giant leap for space travel.

In the four decades that humans have been traveling into space, the suits have changed very little. Traditional, bulky spacesuits don’t give astronauts the mobility they need for working in outer space. In fact, spacesuits have only gotten heavier through the years, with current suits weighing in at about 300 lbs. About 70 percent to 80 percent of the energy astronauts exert on space walks or repair missions goes toward working against the suit to bend it.

The trick is to make a suit that is skintight but stretches with the body, allowing freedom of movement.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have been working on a new spacesuit design for seven years, and the prototype is a revolutionary departure from traditional models.

One key to the new 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.

Rather than using the stiff gas-pressurized vessels employed today to protect astronauts from the vacuum of space, the new suit — dubbed BioSuit — relies on mechanical counter-pressure, involving tight layers of material wrapped around the body to provide both flexibility and protection to the astronaut inside. The suit’s layers are wrapped in a meticulous fashion — based on 3D maps of the human body in motion — to provide structural support while maintaining mobility, researchers say.

The BioSuit is custom fit to each wearer, using full-body laser scanning to size the suit, according to MIT’s Man Vehicle Lab, where students test the various wrapping techniques.

A current prototype of the suit consistently exerts pressures of about 20 kilopascals on its wearer, but newer models have reached pressures of up to 25-30 kPa, which is about one-third that of the Earth’s atmosphere and the target for a space-worthy BioSuit.

Another advantage of the 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,” according to MIT’s news office. “With the BioSuit, a small, isolated puncture can be wrapped much like a bandage, and the rest will be unaffected.”

Moreover, not only does the spacesuit look slimming — especially when compared with the traditional Michelin man spacesuits — it is slimming, according to the researchers. That is to say, the suits could help astronauts stay fit during the six-month journey to Mars.

Last month’s announcement notes:

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.

The MIT team is currently working on the arms and legs, which are proving difficult to design. According to one researcher, the finished BioSuit could be a hybrid, incorporating some elements of traditional suits, including a gas-pressured torso section and helmet. An oxygen tank will also be attached to the back.

MIT’s BioSuit, a sleek spacesuit that relies on mechanical counter-pressure instead of using gas pressurization, on a Henry Moore sculpture at MIT
Credit: Donna Coveney

A fully functional suit could be made ready for spaceflight in about 10 years. Although getting the suits into space is the ultimate goal, the team is also focusing on Earth-bound applications, such as athletic training and helping people walk.

As with other seemingly far-fetched projects such as a space elevator, the skintight BioSuit spacesuit was initially funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. The dozens of unusual NIAC-supported projects are conceptually possible but rely on smart materials or technologies that in many cases are still being developed. It is up to researchers with NIAC funding to show the projects are feasible within 10 to 40 years and describe the future technologies they will need.

Unfortunately, according to an announcement at NIAC’s Web site:

NASA, faced with the constraints of achieving the Vision for Space Exploration, has made the difficult decision to terminate NIAC, which has been funded by NASA since inception.

Effective a week from this Friday (Aug. 31, 2007), the NIAC will cease operations, according to the announcement.

Fortunately for innovation, NASA has turned to cash-prize competitions in an effort to solve some of its technical problems with low-cost, innovative solutions. Today, with the U.S. space agency sponsoring seven design contests — for everything from a new Lunar Lander to a new space glove to a very strong tether material — anybody with a home-brewed invention can enter.

In early May, NASA offered up a $50,000 cash prize for anyone capable of demonstrating a homebuilt version of a spacesuit glove using mechanical counter-pressure technology during its Astronaut Glove Challenge. While the $50,000 prize went unclaimed for lack of entrants and was rolled over to 2008, a $200,000 purse for a more conventional space glove went to Peter Homer, a former aerospace engineer and amateur inventor from Maine.

Resources

One giant leap for space fashion: MIT team designs sleek, skintight spacesuit
by Anne Trafton
MIT News, July 16, 2007

Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) Research — Bio-Suit Overview
MIT Man Vehicle Lab

NIAC is Closing
NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts

This suit is made for walking (on Mars)
by Samir S. Patel
The Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 20, 2005

The Amateur Future of Space Travel
by Jack Hitt
The New York Times, July 1, 2007