Why Spacesuits Are So Expensive | So Expensive

this spacesuit built in 1974 was reported to cost between 15 and 22 million dollars today that would be about a hundred and fifty million having not delivered any new mission-ready extra-vehicular suits since then NASA is running out of space suits in fact NASA are down to just four flight ready evie a suits since 2009 nASA has invested more than 200 million dollars in spacesuit development recently unveiling the ex EMU prototype but NASA still does not have a new fleet of space suits so why is it taken so long for new space suits to be built and what makes them so expensive spaces are so expensive because they're complex human shaped spacecraft think about them in terms of spacecraft not as work clothes a spacesuit has to protect an astronaut from the vacuum of space from radiation coming from the Sun and other bodies and it has to protect against fast traveling particles that are traveling up to 18,000 miles an hour they could penetrate the suit they provide oxygen communications telemetry and everything else that human needs to survive all rolled into one tiny human formed spacecraft but the space suits NASA currently uses are more than 40 years old 18 suits were developed for the space shuttle program in 1974 and have vastly over worked their original 15-year life design suit number one was only used for certification while suit 2 was destroyed during ground testing two suits were lost in the Challenger disaster in 1986 and another two in the Columbia disaster in 2003 the most recent space suit loss was unit 17 during SpaceX sevens cargo mission mishap the exact cost to replace this unit is unknown but estimates range as high as 250 million dollars for the remaining 11 suits the damage is mounting with 7 in various stages of refurbishment and maintenance that leaves only for flight ready spacesuits aboard the International Space Station in fact NASA's first all-female spacewalk was postponed because the space station had only one medium size suit this milestone was finally achieved when NASA sent up a medium torso shell to fit the existing larger suit nASA has invested about a quarter of a billion dollars developing the ex EMU suit for his Artemis program which plans to take humans back to the surface of the Moon by 2024 with a view to eventually go to Mars with that goal fast approaching and the number of existing space suits dwindling NASA engineers face a new kind of space race there is an absolutely a sense of urgency not only because of the number of suits itself is relatively small but the individual components that we use to keep the suits healthy and moving forward they is also dwindling a great example of that is the carbon dioxide sensors the design that the current suits fly is a heritage design some of the components of which are no longer produced some of the vendors that made those components no longer even exist and so today the co2 sensor is a great example of a component where a replacement design that will work for both the existing suit and the new suit basically be a drop-in replacement that's compatible with both suit designs these people shaped spacecraft are packed with complex components but the most expensive parts are subject to debate the most expensive component of the space suit are the gloves the gloves are the most complex because the astronauts need them for manual dexterity to do meaningful work in space you see the interior you see a system with pulleys and strings that hold it together and then on the outside of the glove you see the system of heat radiators that allow the astronaut to keep their hands wore the gloves are an amazing and intricate component but at the end of the day the pressure garment including the gloves is actually less expensive than the life-support system the backpack that is worn on the back of the suit is a highly compressed set of technologies that do everything from maintain temperature to remove carbon dioxide and continue to provide pressure inside the suit itself and I think in the end several of those components are each more expensive than most of the other garment components like the gloves but even these expertly engineered suits can go wrong in 2013 European Space Agency astronaut Luca parmitano reported that his helmet started filling with water Chris you could have some towels ready that would be great in total almost one and a half litres of water leaked into his helmet threatening to drown parmitano mid spacewalk but considering that NASA's Apollo era spacesuits allowed 12 humans to walk on the moon 50 years ago and considering the space shuttle era suits have been used on over 200 spacewalks is such a large investment in new spacesuits needed well that depends on what you're going to ask the astronauts to do walking on Mars is different from walking on the moon it's a different environment it has different hazards so when you're picking these assignments for astronauts you have to take into account do you want the astronaut to be able to walk bend over pick up things or will he or she be carrying something so you have all those considerations that have to fold into that design we believe it is a necessity some of the components and some of the design concepts are no longer consistent with our values and expectations in terms of the quantity and distribution of crewmembers that we fit I believe that yes the investment is appropriate and worthwhile all those dollars get spent here on the ground and they're returned to us in ways that ultimately yield benefits for all humanity and for the taxpayers here in this country we are also lower the barriers to entry from a commercial perspective getting more companies involved eating more companies competing and innovating to try to continue to reduce that price in an effort to develop technology at lower costs NASA often sets design challenges for innovation sometimes partnering with the designers and companies who impress the most in the 2009 astronaut glove challenge Ted Southern bagged the second-place prize of $100,000 he and his partner nikolay moiseev a leading Russian spacesuit engineer used their winnings to form final frontier design we as a business were formed about 10 years ago and have worked with NASA on components of EBA suits for that whole time this is our biggest customer and we've delivered prototype components for the suit including the glove elbow shoulder assemblies parts and pieces but just over the last two years we've focused on bringing the whole system together and final frontier plans to build its own evie a suit much much cheaper than NASA's we intend to deliver flight level suits with similar requirements as NASA's our suits are made with the same material as the suits that NASA is down to the mill traditionally space suits are very expensive I expect our suit development will be in the multi million dollar range but I hope that our suit a VA system will be around two million dollars a piece or less even though nASA has not officially released the unit price of the new X EMU suit it's safe to say their costs will be much higher if we were to take the design of the suit we have today if we were to reproduce copies of that suit we believe that would cost us in the range of 15 to 25 million per unit but we do believe that the design that we're developing today with the X EMU should not only stay within that range we actually believe that competition and the innovation that we've fostered will actually drive that cost lower per unit how does NASA's space suit costs compared with other countries Russia's equivalent of the EMU suit is called the Orlan like NASA it also has four suits aboard the space station but it also has reserves both at the cosmonaut training center in Star City Russia and at Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas according to nikolay moiseev who is one of the few engineers to work on both America's EMU and Russia's Orlan unlike NASA Roscosmos has continually developed new generations of spacesuits Moiseyev personally participated in the development of five generations of Russian space suits and estimates that 24 units were made between 1997 and 2002 with a further 24 units made between 2002 and 2009 teen Ross cosmos is also developing a new Eevee a suit for Russia's first proposed moon landing by 2013 with Russian technology in a cycle of constant development an American EMU fleets continuing to age more commercial opportunities could become available for private companies like final frontier to develop spacesuit technologies at lower prices in 2017 Elon Musk revealed the SpaceX IV a space suit although this in travail a killer suit is only for use inside the spacecraft it's 3d printed helmet and custom-made garments are a glimpse into the future of commercial space wear but is there an actual need for cheaper spacesuits or is space exploration unavoidably expensive I believe the world needs cheaper spacesuits because in my opinion it's inevitable that we will expand past the surface of the earth we need to take advantage of the resources of space to keep our planet healthy and alive so whether it's space suits or rocket technology or means of living in microgravity all of these things I think are important for the future of human [Music] it's one small step for man one giant toast [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 2,452,781

Rating: 4.8822446 out of 5

Keywords: Business Insider, Space, Space Mission, Space Travel, Business News, NASA, Space Suit, Outer Space, Space Ship, Space Shuttle, UK Original Video

Id: _SZujgXkpKM

Length: 10min 41sec (641 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mongoman1665]

I’m not going to space in a $20 suit that’s for sure

[u/WillCo_Gaming]

Spacesuits are expensive because they're hard to design and build, afaik. You have a lot of complicated systems in a pretty small package.