27-01-2005 22:15									#151
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As far as I know, the elasticity need not be uniform -- merely sufficient. The early work on the fabric solutions and the more recent Mars Skin stuff (both done by the same folks) looked promising.

	27-01-2005 22:33									#152
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These electro-spun suits do look pretty sexy, though.

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	27-01-2005 22:33									#153
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Ooh baby.

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Last edited by DanS on 27-01-2005 at 22:49

	27-01-2005 22:35									#154
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http://mvl.mit.edu/EVA/biosuit.html

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	27-01-2005 23:03									#155
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quote: Originally posted by DanS As far as I know, the elasticity need not be uniform -- merely sufficient.

Then good luck trying to move in them.

	27-01-2005 23:05									#156
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Can we all just agree that the internet sucks on Mars?

	27-01-2005 23:22									#157
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Timeout would have to be set for at least 42 minutes!

Better to read things offline.

	28-01-2005 12:37									#158
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I'm not too thrilled by that new spacesuit, DanS: I think the small team that researches it tries to tackle too many problems at the same time:

- making a "second skin" that is pressure-tight, and that would allow the body to be functional in low-pressure conditions, with the helmet. That's already quite a feat.
- making a "second skin" that is symbiotic with the body.
- making better "extravehicular ability" calculations and routines than the existing ones.
- making that second skin able to respond to the body's instructions (i.e. computerize it, or develop a form of biocomputer)
- Package such an insanely complex skin in such a way that it can be sprayed.

Maybe planty of those fields of research have been cleared by previous research, but it doesn't really sound like it when I read their website. I strongly doubt this team (5 people) will be able to do it in any reasonable time. I hope they'll ateempt to tackle one problem at a time though, so that their research can be used by others (NASA ESA...), in a broader attempt at developing better spacesuits

	28-01-2005 22:32									#159
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I agree entirely. The best is often the enemy of the good, and they should have cut down on the new technology list and done development in order, with workable suits but not ideal suits being the priority.

That said, the fact that 5 people are making relatively good progress on the suit demonstrates that these improvements do not have billion dollar pricetags, but are rather low million dollar investments. Indeed, a private company or individual could endow a chair or two at MIT with this project in mind, contemplating the possibility that private enterprise will use the results more than NASA will.

Also, this team looks like it is having substantial synergies with the Future Combat System folks and other teams at MIT. The FCS team is well funded and is doing some far out stuff.

Last edited by DanS on 28-01-2005 at 22:42

	29-01-2005 00:27									#160
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Here is an MIT wearable computing system that probably will be used over time in the Biosuit. Almost all parts are commodity-grade, so you would have to harden them for radiation (not very costly). A lot of this is too far out to use for the Biosuit project, but at least it's cool stuff and demonstrates that such things are possible with minimum funding.

http://www.media.mit.edu/Wearables/mithril/

Last edited by DanS on 29-01-2005 at 00:37