spacesuit

Astronaut Chris Hadfield shows off his spacesuit waltz

Flying aboard the International Space Station isn't just fun and games; members of the crew have to examine their equipment to keep everything in ready-to-use condition. One of the most important pieces of equipment is the spacesuit worn by astronauts when they leave the ISS to go out into the universe.

Spacesuits are made to keep a human body alive in the harsh, anti-gravity environment of space, but they are also used inside a ship should there be a change of pressure.

They are often constructed to help keep the wearer comfortable, keeping in mind mobility and the need to collect solid and liquid waste, "Spacesuits are just really one person spaceships," ISS Commander Chris Hadfield explains in his video. … Read more

Step into NASA's next-generation spacesuit

Around 2015, NASA plans to incorporate a spacesuit that amusingly looks like the one worn by Buzz Lightyear in "Toy Story" -- sans the shiny laser beam.

Before you laugh, know that these new digs aren't toy dressings; the Z-1 NASA spacesuit offers a plethora of advantages compared with the space agency's previous designs. Think of it as the baseline architecture for future NASA spacesuits. … Read more

Set desktop wallpaper easily, restoring lost functionality from Leopard

SpaceSuit is an app that lets you select pictures to use for different desktops. This was a feature supported by OS X Leopard, but later versions of Mac OS X have removed this customization capability. SpaceSuit restores that option, allowing you to have a different background image for each desktop. SpaceSuit was not available in the App Store for this review, but we downloaded it from several sites on the Web.

Using SpaceSuit you can set a new desktop wallpaper by simply dragging any image over the program icon, which immediately sets the wallpaper to that image. To remove a … Read more

Buy a sweet space suit for $10,000

The commercialization of space travel is well on its way. That means you can't just pop over to NASA and borrow a space suit for your private space flight, which leaves room for some upstarts to get in on the space-clothing action.

Final Frontier Design is working on a lightweight, relatively inexpensive space suit and is looking for $20,000 on Kickstarter to boost the project. The company has already built two generations of suits but is looking to improve the design with a retractable helmet, better gloves, a carbon fiber waist ring, and higher operating pressure.… Read more

Upstart unveils tourist space suit

HOLLOMAN AIR FORCE BASE, N.M.--Fashions for private space travel are becoming reality.

On Saturday, the Washington, D.C., start-up Orbital Outfitters showed off a prototype of its first pressurized suit for the commercial space industry here at the 2007 X Prize Cup, a two-day space and air show.

The suit, called the IS(3)C (for Industrial Suborbital Space Suit-Crew), is specifically designed for pilots who will man an upcoming generation of suborbital rockets. Companies including Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic plan to send four or five tourists at a time up on … Read more

Spock's spacesuit sells for $10,100

What a day for date repellants. Just hours after we mentioned the "Lightsaber Umbrella" did we hear of another ill-advised purchase, one that would be the envy of every nerd at the convention: Spock's spacesuit.

As noted by Spluch, an eBay auction that ended today claimed to have the "authentic spacesuit featured prominently in Star Trek I: The Motion Picture when 'Spock' (Leonard Nimoy) left the Enterprise to conduct a mindmeld with the 'V' Ger Probe." Wow. The frightening thing is there are people out there who will instantly recognize this scene by that description, … Read more