Only 12 people have ever walked on the Moon and
they all did it within just 4 years of each other... Then, for the last 50 years, no one has gone back.
But that is about to change. Soon, astronauts will return to the Moon to prepare for people to
live there long term and to get us ready to send the first humans to another planet. But to
do all of that, they need to be able to survive outside in space and work for hours in one of the
most dangerous conditions a human being will ever face. The problem is our spacesuits for the
Moon haven't been updated in decades. But now to make this next chapter in space possible,
spacesuits are getting a major upgrade. These new suits will give astronauts the superpower
to do more for longer and I am one of the first civilians to put one on. In this video, we're
taking you behind the scenes to show you how they're designing, building, and testing NASA's
new spacesuits. I'm going to put myself and this suit to the test to give you a sneak peek
into what it looks like, what it feels like, and how it might change what
humanity can do in space... "Ignition sequence starts...." "Liftoff! We have a liftoff!" "Altitude: 1600." "The eagle has landed..." "That's one small step for man..." ... one giant step for Huge If True! JUSTIN: Are you ready to go see a spacesuit?
CLEO: I have never been more ready for anything in whole life. Like this is the episode that
is most what 10-year-old Cleo would have desperately wanted to be doing now. The stuff we
get to do for this show is just ridiculous! Today we're at Axiom Space, the company that NASA
selected to build the Artemis III spacesuit. Hi! So nice meet you! This is a big deal. It's
the first time that NASA has outsourced the production of their suits, to replace the
legendary but now aging and outdated suits that they have. That's where Axiom comes in. These
new suits that they're building will be used for NASA's upcoming Artemis III mission. Here's
the plan: In 2026, four astronauts will leave Earth on one of the most powerful rockets ever
made and take the several day journey to the Moon. When they arrive, two of them will descend
to the surface and spend 6.5 days there which is twice as long as anyone has ever spent
on the Moon and the first time that humans will have been back since 1972. And they'll be the
first humans to explore this region near the lunar south pole, where they hope to find resources
like water and metals which are crucial for living on the moon and getting to Mars. To
do all of that, these astronauts need to be able to stay outside on the lunar surface
longer than ever before. They need new kinds of protection against extreme heat and extreme
cold. No one has ever spent so long in areas that never get any sunlight. They need more
flexibility and even more range of motion to do their job, and they need suits that fit
more kinds of people. For this big ambitious mission and for the future of space travel,
astronauts need the next generation of space suits... RUSSELL: "So this is our prototype space suit that
we use here at Axiom Space and this is our suit test lab. So this is the lab where we do
a lot of our testing." This suit is almost done but they're still testing and updating this
prototype. The lives of astronauts depend on the people, technology, and work being done in this
room. "That's the purpose of a space here right, is yeah we want to go into space, we want
to go to explore wherever it is, you know low earth orbit or the surface of the Moon, and the spacesuit
is there to enable you to do that. That's its job." One of my big questions that I've
always had is: If I were to snap my fingers and instantaneously be in space, in the vacuum of space,
how would I die? "So this is a controversy in the in the community actually..." Amazing. Basically there
are dozen things that are gonna kill you, the controversy is what order they're going to kill
you in. Most sci-fi gets this wrong. You probably wouldn't immediately freeze or explode. If you
snapped your fingers and you were in space right now, your first problem is going to be there's no
atmosphere, meaning no oxygen but also meaning no pressure keeping you together like on Earth.
So the pressure difference between inside and outside of your body would immediately cause all
of the air to just rush on out of you. Imagine a balloon... but don't hold your breath because then
your lungs might [POP]. Then, in about 15 seconds, your brain would stop getting the leftover oxygen in
your blood, so you'd black out, which is probably good because your body would be swelling up since
the lower pressure would then start to lower the boiling point of the water inside of your blood
and your tissues turning it into vapor inside of you, though you likely wouldn't explode because
your skin is super stretchy. Your next problem is temperature. Because there's no atmosphere,
there's no ambient temperature around you but if you were in the Sun, the light would make
that side of your body heat up to potentially 150° C while simultaneously the other side of your
body would be slowly freezing down to 150°. Oh and if somehow you survive that you'd be getting so
blasted by radiation that it would probably poison you and give you cancer, and you might eventually
get shred to bits by flying objects going fast than bullets. But if you got rescued before about
90 seconds, you might actually survive! After that though... So... spacesuits are really important. The
first step to putting on a spacesuit is to basically sign your life away and get a bunch of
medical tests. This is a medical history that says that I'm fit to be inside a spacesuit. Probably.
The reason I need these tests is that they're going to fully pressurize the suit around me,
which protects astronauts from dying but can have dangerous consequences if you have certain
medical conditions. "Perfect. I want you to close your eyes really tight and don't let me open them.
Chicken wings. Don't let me press down... don't let me pull up. Perfect." One thing I realized as I was
prepping to get in the suit is that we've got to stop thinking about spacesuits as clothing. These
are not clothes, not even really high-tech clothes. This is a one-person human-shaped spacecraft. But
not all spacesuits are the same. There are a few big buckets you should know: "One is what's called
launch and entry suits. And the other one is what I would call EVA suits or extravehicular activity
suits. And that's the suit that we're working on here. Launch and entry are those orange orange
space shuttle suits, they're the white and black suits that SpaceX uses, they're essentially
high altitude suits such that if your vehicle experiences a problem and loses its ability to
control the atmosphere of the vehicle those suits become an atmosphere for you and allow you to at
least re-enter to get back to Earth safely." Spacesuits began in this launch and entry bucket. "So
when you go back and look at the Mercury program really what they were dealing with is these high
altitude suits that protected you in case your your cabin lost pressure or something like that.
It's kind of like being on an airplane. They tell you like, hey your mask will come down
if we lose air pressure and that's to give you oxygen. The difference with space flight is you're
so high not only do you need oxygen you also need a suit to keep the pressure on your body, right."
But as humans did more in space, we needed suits that could do more too. The kind of
extravehicular activity suit that NASA uses is called the "'Extravehicular Mobility Unit,' or the EMU. Those
are ones where you're outside - extra vehicular right - you're on the surface of the Moon or you're
floating a low earth orbit and those suits are the ones that let you go out and explore into space."
Some EMUs allow astronauts to walk on the surface, like this, and some are just for zero gravity
space walks, like this. But until now an EMU has been basically impossible to fix in space which
is a problem if we want to live there. "That suit was originally designed for these 14-day missions
of flying up, coming down, being refurbished, flying up, coming down, being refurbished. This is different
than that. We've designed this suit from the ground up from the very beginning to be maintained on
orbit or on mission. It's much more sustainable in terms of helping space flight costs come down
over time, so that more people can access space." The goal is to bring down the cost of getting
the suits to space and also the cost of the space suits themselves. The NASA suits from the 1970s
were each reported to cost about 150 million in today's dollars. NASA gave Axiom 228 million for
the development of the new model but the plan is to reduce the cost per suit as they make more of
them. The future of space travel needs suits that are cheaper to make and cheaper to use. It sounds
like this moment reflects a major transition in the way that we're thinking about humans in
space at all. "Absolutely." That's why this new suit is so "huge if true." It's part of this big
change in what humans can do in space. So now it's time to put this new suit to the test. Hang
on, I want to show you something. So traveling to see a spacesuit is just one of the episodes that
we've been making for Huge If True. We've also been traveling to visit CERN in Switzerland. We went
to go see a Formula 1 car in Bahrain. It's been awesome. But one of the things I always do when I'm
traveling is I want to make my computer feel like I'm still in the United States. Just so websites
are automatically in English and things are in dollars and none of my streaming shows get blocked,
that kind of thing. It just feels like home online to me which is nice and I do that with a virtual
private network or VPN like Surfshark and they're sponsoring this video. So here's what this looks
like: I can set it to the US when I'm abroad like this but then when I get home, sometimes I
want my computer to think that I'm in another country like when I'm doing research I sometimes
want to see what a site looks like in another country or some government sites, stuff like that.
That's super easy too. With Surfshark, I can just set it to one of a hundred different countries
so I can be anywhere in the world right here in my studio. If you don't use a VPN, I think you might
find it useful. I know I do. And if you want to try it, they offer a 30-day money back guarantee and
you can get get an extra 3 months free by using the link in my description or using promo code
"CLEO" at Surfshark.deals/Cleo. Now back to the spacesuit. Now I got to go put on my cooling pajamas
before I get in the suit. The "cooling pajamas" that astronauts wear look like this. They're
technically called liquid cooling garments. You wear these under the suit and water runs through
these tubes to make sure that you don't get too hot. So this is the answer to the question
of how to astronauts go to the bathroom. They use a diaper! And they don't call
it a diaper, they call it a "MAG" - a maximum absorbency garment. And then this and
then I'm ready. Okay awesome. Okay go away! Let's do this thing. Put me to work. I'm
technically a test subject! Oh I get a little hat! I wanted to say I've never been more ready
for anything in my life but I am also really nervous. "And hey Cleo, scratch your face
before you get in!" Oh I was going to ask! How you deal with being itchy? "Use the neck ring and the
valsalva but like sometimes you're like, I can't get to it!" Those were two of my big questions: How
do you pee? And how do you itch? And it seems like the answer is... "You deal with it." All right boss. "Let's
get you to walk back here. You to walk up the steps." "If you're uncomfortable at any point
just say so. We can get you out fast." Thank you. "Are you reading me?" I read you. "Can you give me
a quick five count?" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. They're hooking up my cooling. I'm starting to feel it cooling my
lower legs. Now my upper legs. Now I'm feeling it in my top as well. Huh wow I feel cooler. "So at
this point, you're clear to drop into the suit..." This suit is just a marvel of
human engineering. It represents decades of achievements, not just in space flight but
in manufacturing and design and chemistry and textile science and thermodynamics and so much
more. It's the next step in our interplanetary future. Now it's the big moment... As the helmet went on, there was this
moment where I just felt... calm. I closed my eyes and
I imagined being an astronaut... This feels as cool as I thought it would
when I was a kid. I can't believe I'm inside a spacesuit right now and it's everything that I ever
imagined. Can you hear me now? Okay yeah testing testing. I don't know I know how to describe this.
It doesn't feel mechanical, it doesn't feel like fabric, it doesn't feel like a big coat. It's
like wearing an Iron Man suit? It feels like a spacesuit! It feels like you imagine a spacesuit
feels! I don't know how else to describe it. The thing that's becoming really clear to me
right now is that spacesuits are not clothes. This is much more like a humans shaped spacecraft. "Yes
it is. Yeah, it's a human-shaped spacecraft. Your life depends on this. It has that reliability
and that robustness built into it to protect you from all these things that could harm you."
Okay so here's how this spacesuit stops you from dying in space. "First and foremost, the suit
provides you an atmosphere. It provides you oxygen that you can breathe and pressure
that your body can can operate in." The oxygen that I'm breathing right now comes from tubes
running into the suit from this machine but in the final suit all of the oxygen and carbon
dioxide being breathed in and out will be processed inside a big backpack, the primary life
support system. As they're pumping oxygen into the suit with this machine, the pressure inside
the suit for me is increasing. And that new pressure will be contained by the inner bladder
layer. There are lots of layers to a spacesuit but you can think of them in three major sections.
Before I got into the suit, we got to see each of them being made. "So what we have here is that
bladder layer right. So this is the layer of the glove that actually holds the pressure." If
you want to know what these feel, like go find a pair of dishwashing gloves it's basically
similar except with a really fancy proprietary material. material. Then on top of the bladder layer, there's
a restraint layer that stops the whole thing from inflating like a balloon because of the pressure.
And this restraint layer also defines how the suit can move. Astronauts need to practice how
to move in a space suit with a model like this. "This is what we call our 1G analog suit or you can
just think of it as a training suit. This is what the astronauts will wear when they're
doing geologic training out in say the desert somewhere. We use this to train them on
what motions they can and can't do with tools and so we have a variety of different joints
and mobility elements that kind of teach the astronaut." If you think about how your shoulder moves, it doesn't
only move that way. That's one way you could lift your arm. So astronauts have to learn, lift your arm
this way, like this. It was wild to actually feel that inside the suit. Oh that's very interesting,
I can already feel that my arms move in these very specific ways. I feel like I could do anything I
want with my arms but I would have to follow a specific path to get there. That's the motion that
I can do right now. But as they add pressure like they would on the Moon, it gets harder to move and
it feels a little weird too. What's happening right now is they're very very slowly pressurizing the
suit so I'm feeling a little bit of weirdness in my ears. "Just notice how the resistance changes as
the pressure increases." Spacesuits get pressurized to 4.3 PSI or pounds per square inch. The pressure
that you'd normally feel at sea level is 14.7 PSI so getting pressurized an extra 4.3 PSI feels
like diving to the bottom of a pool. Just enough where you need to pop your ears. You can experience
this yourself right now if you're watching this by holding your nose and blowing through it.
That feeling in your ears is what I'm feeling right now. The way that I clear my ears since I
obviously can't hold my nose is, I go like this... Works great! I'm at 2.5 right now,
we're going up to 4.3. And you can tell that my hands are getting stiffer. The suit itself is
starting to feel a little bit different but I can still do some things. I can... I am feeling okay!
"Another thing for you to just think about while you're sitting right there is, on a real EVA day,
an astronaut will be doing this right here for about 13 hours. So you're in there for the next 13
hours. It's a challenging job." 13 hours... I'm wearing a diaper and I can't scratch my face. So together
the bladder layer and the restraint layer contain the atmosphere that you need and define how you
can move. The final insulation layer helps protect you from all of these. That's the black outer
layer. One thing you might be wondering is, why is it black and not the iconic white? The answer
is because this is just a prototype. On the Moon, it'll be white like this. And you might have heard
that Prada is helping with pieces of the final design but the color isn't just stylistic. They
have to use white because they want to reflect as much light as possible to keep cool. This outer
layer also protects astronauts from certain kinds of dangerous radiation and against cuts and
punctures from dust and debris. They're still testing exactly what fabric to use to do all of
that and before I got into the suit I got to see that process. "So here we've got one of our cutting
tables and so one of the things people may not realize is that you know this this space suit is
this three-dimensional thing but it starts out as a two-dimensional shape." And how much of this
is handmade versus done by a larger machine? "It's mostly handmade. There's there
there are some things that we've automated through machines. The cutting process is is
now automated. But in some cases you're turning these machines by hand very slowly because of the
precision that we need in the stitching. A lot of inspection, a lot of quality control on it so that
we know that whatever we're building is going to be safe." I'm a little bit surprised that it's so
handmade, that that precision is human precision as opposed to computer precision. "That's right yeah
and some of that comes from you know we don't make millions of space suits so you would
bring in that automation when you talk about a high production environment but for us you
know we're not making those kinds of volumes and so it's not really necessary right now." I got
to talk to one of the people actually hand sewing these prototype suits. "Sewing a spacesuit is a
very unique job even within the world of sewing. It's highly technical, very precise. So this crew of
of people, they're the ones that are making sure this suit can keep someone alive basically!" As I
was in the suit, I could feel the craftsmanship that they put into it. It's an incredible piece
of technology from the top all the way to the bottom. One new aspect of this suit is how well
this outer layer insulates your feet. "These boots have some unique proprietary features in them
that essentially will insulate your foot from the surface in the moon because the surface will
be very very cold. In permanently shaded regions, regions of the Moon that haven't seen sun, it's
going to be very very cold." Another feature of these suits is that they're designed to fit a
wide range of body types which is crucial for sending more people to space. They're supposed to
cover 90% of men and women in the United States. This is unlike previous Apollo suits that were
custom designed to fit each astronaut which is very expensive and also limiting." To fix this, Axiom
uses a small, medium, and a large base option and then they swap out and tailor additional pieces
for the person inside in the days leading up to this shoot I had to and my measurements. Not just
my height and my weight, but also my chest breadth and my inter wrist measurement and my crotch
height. They assembled this suit for me. This kind of modular suit design will open the
door to space to so many more people. This suit is incredible. Every little bit is pushing
modern technology to the max. It's a spacecraft made as small and flexible and human-shaped as
possible to make it easier to collect samples and do research and traverse the lunar surface. And
now... I'm going to get to show you a tiny taste of some of those tasks... if I can. It's tricky! Ooh I
really don't want to fall down in your spacesuit. They're about to put me through four challenges to
see if I have what it takes to even try to be an astronaut. I'm doing this on Earth which has six
times the gravity astronauts will experience on the moon. Axiom wouldn't share exactly how much this
prototype suit weighs but it felt like I could stand in it for maybe 5 minutes without help and
the weight is distributed all around my body so I would guess that it's somewhere between 150 to
200 lb on Earth. On the Moon, it will feel feel much lighter though it'll be way harder to use for
other reasons. So to get a more realistic sense of its Moon weight they're using pulleys to help
lift me up. I both feel very serious, this is one of the greatest honors of my life. I also feel
quite silly. "Oh man!" All right, challenge number 1: collect a sample. "This is going to be a challenge
'cause those gloves are very long." Okay so just to be very clear, this is not indicative of what an
astronaut will be able to do in space partly because I'm going to stink at this and partly
because these gloves are both prototypes and quite large. The first tools that they had me use were
a chisel and a hammer. I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. The goal here is to simulate
the process of breaking off and collecting lunar rock samples. Okay so now I've broken off a piece...
The next part of this challenge was to collect my sample using only the tools. This was a lot harder than it looked! I got it! So I would swing my arm... Aha! I got it. I got it. I feel like an extremely technologically
sophisticated squirrel. One small step for mankind,
one giant step for Huge If True. Oh no my nose is running and I can't do anything about
it! Don't look at me... I'd say challenge number one accomplished. Challenge number 2: Run. And by
run I mean walk fast. That treadmill that I'm about to get on is built for horses. Let's
go. Put me on the treadmill. I got it, I got it... Alright. Work me out! It's not that it feels heavy. It's that it
feels... weird. It's like, I'm not actually moving my legs straight like you would normally walk. It's
like I'm rotating the inside of the bearing and that's how I'm walking. So it's sort of like,
imagine waddling like a duck but like in a much more graceful way. I could go faster. How fast
is fast? "Oh this, it'll go fast." Okay, take me to 2! Ok 2.5! I mean I couldn't do this for very long! Yeah I mean, I'm definitely warmer but I'm
not I'm not hot. This feels quite comfortable. I mean it's a relative term. Listen, not to
brag but later they told me that this is the fastest they'd ever seen a guest go on
the treadmill. Wait guys, wait for the best part! I don't think I've ever been so happy.
Challenge 2: check! Challenge 3: Do a squat in full Earth gravity. I would love
to attempt that. I about to try bearing all of the weight of the suit by myself which at
Earth gravity is quite heavy. This is much much heavier than it will be on the moon or on Mars.
All right here we go, the hardest squat of my life... Thanks guys. Challenge 3? Check!
Final challenge: Kneel and get back up. So the goal
is to put one knee on the ground. I feel like I'm planting a flag. This is an
example of something you would not be able to do in the current EVA suits, being able to be in
a position like this in a full EVA suit. Thank you and now for extra credit: Do the moonwalk. "Yeah you
got to try to do the moonwalk, you got to." Wait yeah okay, how do you do the moonwalk? I can't even
do the moonwalk without a spacesuit on! But it's like [WOMP WOMP]. You let a YouTuber inside a spacesuit.
Okay so I am not the most graceful person to have ever dawned a spacesuit. But I was just so
impressed by what they had built: a portable spacecraft that not only protects you from the
harsh realities of space but it can also bend and flex and work with our human bodies. The
hope is that the suits that they make here will help us reach beyond our planet and unlock
interplanetary future that as far as we know only our species has ever even attempted. Getting to
try on this spacesuit was the experience of a lifetime. It's what I dreamed about when I was
a kid. And likely one day this suit and other prototypes like it will be in museums for other
kids to see in exhibits dedicated to the people and the equipment that prepared humanity to go
farther than we've ever gone before. If there's only one thing you take away from this video
it's how much work goes into designing a suit like this. Every time you see an astronaut do
something new, every time you see an astronaut take a space walk or set foot on the moon again
or set foot on Mars don't just think about that astronaut. Think about all of the people that
designed all of the things that that astronaut uses all the way down to the intricate
details of the suit that they're wearing. This is so cool! Wait can you say that again into my mic? [LAUGHTER]
What was that? "You're the first person that has gone up to 2.5 on the treadmill so very
very impressive. We've not had anybody go up that high." Thank you for giving me the opportunity. I wanted to
say a big thank you to the Axiom team. We are the first creators that they've let into their
facilities and we were blown away by all of the amazing people on their team. Also while we
were there, they showed us a model of the SPACE STATION that they're building which was insane so
subscribe if you want to see more because this is not the last episode that we'll be making
about space. If you want to see that and more optimistic stories about space and our future,
subscribe. We've got so much in the works for you.
