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Deliciously Retro Spacesuit Design for Cosmonauts Debuts in NYC

by Matthew Zuras on July 19, 2010 at 10:20 AM

New Spacesuit
East recently met West in a tale of astronaut suits and cosmic gloves, flying in the face of the Cold War-era Space Race and its resulting political divide. That is to say, a Russian guy and a dude from Brooklyn collaboratively designed a new spacesuit, and unveiled it Friday at New York's Eyebeam Art and Technology Center. Nikolay Moiseev, from Moscow, and Ted Southern, from our favorite borough, met back in 2007 during a NASA challenge to invent a new astronaut glove for a $200,000 prize. Although neither won, they did team up and garner second place, along with $100,000, in the 2009 challenge. Now, they've gone full tilt, and have crafted a beautifully retro and fully functional spaceman suit.

While the inventors demoed the new gloves' dexterity by adeptly manipulating a Rubik's cube, the suit can also withstand the incredibly high pressure that is involved in rocket launches and reentries. Although they don't yet have any customers, Moiseev and Southern are looking for a commercial space tourism company like Virgin Galactic to grab the suit. If we had space shuttles to outfit, we'd certainly use it. As we see it, the dome-helmeted, '2001'-like design constitutes an aesthetic return on a highly functional investment. [From: Space.com, via: Engadget]

Tags: astronaut, design, EyebeamArtAndTechnologyCenter, nasa, NikolayMoiseev, space, spacesuit, spacetourism, SpaceTravel, TedSouthern, top

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