Spandex Space Suits
By Hayley Birch
If you’re a fashion freak considering a career change, start thinking about aeronautics.Are you one of those annoying people who turns up to work looking like you’ve just walked off the catwalk? Are you the girl that rocks up every day in her hot LBD (that’s little black dress, boys) or the guy who’s always checking himself out in his monitor?
The life of a space traveller seems glamorous, but anyone even remotely interested in fashion would never dream of signing up to astronaut school. All that padding just wouldn’t show off your best attributes. And having your head stuck in a goldfish bowl isn’t going to do much for your barnet.
But all that’s about to change. Okay, so there’s still the bubble head, but bulky Michelin man style all-in-ones have had their day – a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented ultra-sexy, skin-tight space suits made from spandex and nylon. Ooo-er.
Old-style space suits can weigh anything up to 130kg (about 300 pounds). Let’s not gloss over this: that’s like carrying around two people. They use gas pressurisation to shield space travellers from the vacuum they step into when they leave their shuttle.
The new suits, however, are made up of many layers wrapped tightly around the astronaut’s body to protect it, combined with patterns that provide structural support, while at the same time allowing them the mobility to run or jump.But let’s get back to what this is really all about. Space travel just got a whole lot sexier.
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Or get spaced out reading these:
Space girls get astronaughty
The space travelogue - Destination: Pluto
Shrooms from outer space
Custard seen from space
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Image courtesy of Donna Coveney (MIT)
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