Artemis moon suit designed by Axiom Space and Prada revealed in Milan | Hacker News Reader

Artemis moon suit designed by Axiom Space and Prada revealed in Milan

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49 pointsPeterCorless69 comments

Lot of people here talking trash on this probably don’t know the history or even current status of Prada. In short they are absolute top of the line when it comes to everything from the pattern work to the actual nuts and bolts of manufacturing this sort of thing. Any other company would very likely take more time and money to produce and inferior product.

I was going to ask what Prada brings to the table, but I guess it’s industrial knowledge in clothing fabrication? I can’t imagine NASA really cares what they look like as long as they don’t look like total dorks.

Where can I read more about Prada's other ventures into this sort of thing?

Novel pattern work and top of the line quality in manufacturing? Probably your local Prada boutique would be a good start. Or prada.com barring that.

I think that the SpaceX EVA suits are just a little too sleek and modern yet bland. Like default Unreal Engine spacesuit assets.

Pleasantly surprised to see these spacesuits look classic yet beautiful. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Italian fashion designers did a good job.

I have no view on the technical merits of the suits or the program.

If there's one place where it's important to look stylish, it's when you're floating alone in outer space.

On the other hand, video of astronauts floating in space probably did more to get kids into STEM than most other things in the 20th century. The cultural appeal of space has a real impact on society.

I was about to say the same. At a time when the plurality of kids want to be YouTubers when they grow up^, I can’t help but feel that more investment into the “cool factor” of STEM would not be misplaced. What kind of impact would kids across the nation seeing astronauts decked out in head to toe custom Prada have on the future of our domestic research&development efforts? It’s hard to quantify, but I imagine it has to be more than whatever the minuscule additional cost a bit of flair on the space suits might add to the program.

https://www.statista.com/chart/31014/most-popular-future-job...

I think you’re right I always loved the spacesuits. I begged my grandma to make a silver Gemini suit for me for Halloween once. Loved it forever.

I felt the same about the space x suits though, boring. Look like pyjamas

Is that the floating in space part and the robots and rockets surrounding it, or whatever the space suits look like? For now, space suits need to be safe and practical.

Safe and practical are not orthogonal with aesthetically pleasing!

Sure, but that's a matter of taste, so until we have money left as those things are taken care of, no need to spend money on aesthetics. And we are not that routinely sending people into space.

And yet the US President didn't even congratulate the first private spacewalk ever in the world recently accomplished by an American company, for purely political reasons. So sad to see.

I'm not sure that's really an accomplishment that will inspire kids.

Why would the government congratulate a private company?

Because it's an American accomplishment?

For example here is Biden congratulating GM's Mary Barra as the leader and innovator of EVs after not inviting Tesla to an EV summit in 2021.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=UduPjk9gonw

Tesla produced about 200k EVs that quarter and GM produced just 26. Unions donate a lot so they have a lot of sway and control.

That’s a lifetime developer perspective.

> I have no view on the technical merits of the suits or the program.

I am just an online space nerd, but, for one thing the SpaceX suits don't have the insulation required for the wearer to be in direct sunlight. It appears that they still have a ways to go before being as useful as the standard NASA EVA suit.

I think the look will change dramatically once they are at a point where it has the same usability as the NASA EVA suit. It will have to be thicker for one thing, won't it?

Yeah, there's just something that feels off with the SpaceX suits. They are perhaps more efficient to manufacture than NASA's first iconic designs that they then mostly just stuck with but come on.

Feels like a case of Muskian "can we delete this part/aspect without impacting the mission goals? SpaceX needs a graphical/visual designer with the power to influence stuff like this :)

I'm a noob, but on coolness factor only, this looks kinda lame?

I understand the SpaceX suits aren't rated for moonwalking but these also feel (to this layman's eyes) like the same suit we could make decades ago

These are a huge upgrade in flexability and comfort.

Aesthetics are not ignored, but they are certainly deprioritized over functionality.

Fair but it does say Prada on the label and they were revealed in the capital of fashion...

On reflection, I wish they had gone in for stronger comparisons. Shown old and new side by side and talked about where they kept things classic versus styled them up.

I also think of some things like a white shirt and black tie will never look “new” but will always look good. I’m not sure how much of “it should look like how people think a spacious should look” played a part versus is accidental.

They talked about white being functional. But did they have any choice in the matter? Could a subtle off white have been on the table? What elements of style were they allowed? Could they add extra seams? Or change angles or is it just that they slapped their logo on it? I’m genuinely curious on the details of the work.

Anything other than pure white starts absorbing light = heat = need for additional cooling. Such an aesthetic choice has actual ramifications for the wearer.

Right. I understand that. I agree it’s a good functional choice. It was my original point that functionality largely drives the design.

This comment you are responding to was me digging deep and wondering what design flexibility existed and thinking through it out loud.

Some parts aren’t white. The shoes are blue. The knees are grey. I want them to talk about that design process that led to those colors in those places and how they balanced aesthetics with functionality.

Got it.

I mean, it’s a space suit. It’s theoretically possible to have space suits that look a lot cooler (or at least different) from this, but most of them would require huge breakthroughs in technology that we don’t have. So instead we just do a refinement on the same basic approach that we already know works. If we had exotic materials or significantly better energy storage we might be able to replace traditional space suits with space marine power armor or some sort of form fitting wetsuit-looking thing, but we ain’t there yet.

If white makes it easier to remove dust, then why are the parts that are most likely to get covered in dust gray?

Also, the backpack look a bit bulky.

> Also, the backpack look a bit bulky.

Given that it's noticeably smaller than earlier spacesuits, and probably contains heavy-duty oxygen tanks, cooling and heating systems, a water supply, life-support monitoring, a honking big battery, communications systems, plus redundancies for safety... it's probably a huge accomplishment in miniaturization.

> If white makes it easier to remove dust, then why are the parts that are most likely to get covered in dust gray?

Those look like knee/elbow pads. Probably a tougher material.

> Also, the backpack look a bit bulky.

Quite a bit smaller than the ones Apollo used, from the looks of it.

> Those look like knee/elbow pads. Probably a tougher material.

But why grey? Color doesn't make them tougher.

> the backpack look a bit bulky.

Thankfully it's much easier to lug on the moon or in microgravity.

The color doesn’t matter for dust removal with a good enough illumination and imaging system.

Per the OP:

"The white material also helps mitigate lunar dust by making it easier to see on the fabric."

That made me think - wouldn't green be the best color for it? As in green screen?

Any color can be used for greenscreen, and blue is often used as second preference to green. I am guessing green is used as that is the least occurring color on a character's clothes or objects in the household.

Following in Playtex's footsteps: https://www.fastcompany.com/90375440/the-improbable-story-of...

I wish these looked more futuristic. They sort of look wrinkly and a lot like the spacesuits we’ve always had. I don’t see what Prada brought to the aesthetics of this.

That aside, wow NASA paid $228 million for these suits? That seems like a lot to me, but I don’t really know what’s involved either. Are the materials or manufacturing techniques new? I would think you don’t need to tool for this small scale manufacturing but could just make them by hand. But the article also mentions complex electronic systems like CO2 scrubbers and heat management. Are those bespoke or more likely to be off the shelf?

Each suit is it's own mini spaceship. A lot goes into keeping someone alive and functional where instant death is surrounding you from all sides.

>I don’t see what Prada brought to the aesthetics of this.

As a taxpayer whose tax dollars in part went into this, I am happy that precisely none of it went to aesthetics.

Form resulting as a consequence of function is amazing, just look at any proper jet fighter or indeed the NASA spacesuits of olde; Bruce McCandless looked amazing in his iconic EVA photo.[1]

If even a single tax cent goes directly to form over function, though? I will happily vote to defund such a waste of my tax dollars.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:STS41B-35-1613_-_Bruce_Mc...

> precisely none of it went to aesthetics

Prada? I know they're being pitched as a manufacturing partner but I think it’s similar to others who make spacesuits choosing a design team.

Honestly 228M for something like a space suit doesn’t even seem excessive to me. Extreme security requirements together with extreme conditions make for an expensive combo. Electronics for these conditions are hardly ever off the shelf because of the harsh environment.

If these suits fail it’s not only immediately life threatening for the astronauts, it would also be a huge embarrassment for the country. So if you still can pull off something like a moon landing, better do it right.

Too bad we aren’t going to the moon anytime soon: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-17/michae....

If that headline doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about Artemis…

The sooner this program gets canned the better. Suppliers aren’t even pretending to give value for money anymore.

Artemis probably is a boondoggle, but the headline isn’t necessarily an indication of that. The Apollo spacesuits were manufactured by Playtex, by the same seamstresses that made their bras at the time, supposedly because they were the most qualified to do the work.

When it comes to manufacturing small quantities of high quality textiles (which is, in part, exactly what a spacesuit is), this is exactly the kind of business partnership that makes sense.

Really most of Artemis is well run. They got Starship to provide their lander, they are aiming for Shakleton Crater where there is likely ice in the permanent shadows, they are just stuck with SLS for their human lifter because Congress said so. It will be comical seeing the little Orion spacecraft docking with the HLS, really a testament to how new space is leaving old space in the dustbin of history.

I’m not really convinced with the Lunar Gateway either, but we’ll see.

This is probably one of the better run parts of Artemis, considering that it's a fixed price milestone-based contract awarded after NASA realized they were getting nowhere on their own suit after spending 13 years working on them, with the OIG predicting each of those original suits would cost $500M with the way they were going.

The least value for money parts are pretty much entirely SLS related, with most of them involving blank checks handed out to legacy contractors with no real consequences for poor performance.

Great article by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-17/michae...

What? Prada is a cutting edge fabric technology and garment manufacturing company. They have been working on the edge of fashion, which is nothing to scoff at. If you judge the world by headlines, please consider how much you’ll miss out on.

> "I'm very proud of the result we're showing today," said Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group chief marketing officer and head of corporate social responsibility. "We've shared our expertise on high-performance materials, features and sewing techniques, and we learned a lot."

What else has Prada done that is high-functional? For example, do they make garments for militaries? Deep sea diving? Work in dangerous/toxic environments?

Prada makes tons of luggage, which from what I’ve seen and heard hold up well. They are well known for their luggage.

A lot of people look down on these types of fashion brands, as of the fashion industry isn’t a huge important part of humanity, allowing us to keep our bodies safe from the weather and conditions outdoors. Fashion is one of the most important and well researched industries, and the technology they innovate with is the whole reason we can even begin to think about sending humans to space.

Do you think a bunch of nerds in NASA are able to understand the best stitching and materials to use, and how to best design joints to allow the great freedom of movement? No way, you need the experts, like Prada.

Luggage doesn't seem to be a great qualification. I listed several fields which might have relevant experience: deep sea diving, work gear for toxic environments, military, etc. Luggage for my transatlantic flight doesn't seem like the same thing.

> A lot of people look down on these types of fashion brands

That strawperson has nothing to do with me or how well Prada can deliver.

> Do you think a bunch of nerds in NASA are able to understand

They do pretty well; I wouldn't dismiss them. They're leading technology organization in the history of humanity. And they have much more experience making space suits than Prada - or anyone else in the world. Also, your comment about NASA is not unlike the strawperson comments about Prada that you criticize.

So NASA is now both competent enough to build a space suit but incompetent enough to be trusted to farm it out to a group of third party specialists, which Prada was but one of? I said they can deliver technology and experience that will help the goals of the suit project, such as knowing how to sew stuff together to be more flexible, while the OP comment I replied to initially was calling them out based solely on the title of the article.

Sure, you are giving points post-argument that seem to make some sort of sense, but your argument reads to me as if you're just arguing for argument sake that there is some possible way that this procurement strategy is wrong because Prada is involved, rather than looking at the whole picture and trying to determine why they would pick Prada at all. My comments go towards many reasons Prada has the "right stuff", but your comments seem to simply be nit-picking my arguments. Do you have any reason to believe Prada being involved is a bad thing, and if so please provide at least a shred of logic other than, "they're not qualified" when you clearly haven't even considered them as a technology leader? Do you have a better suggestion, considering a literal space tech company is the lead on this project, anyways? I feel like the male tech nerds here are just fighting some nebulous idea of Prada, feel free to prove me wrong.

The question is, does Prada's expertise apply?

Your impressions of my motives are irrelevant (and false). I'm not here to prove them wrong or right.

Clearly the smart people who chose Prada thought so, who are you to second guess them without any evidence or experience? It’s preposterous.

Military kit is significantly higher in production volume. You don’t need to mass produce tens to hundreds of thousands of spacesuits; you need to make a handful of them very, very well. Even diving and hazmat gear is more mass produced than spacesuits.

so someone paid a ton of money for top tier designers to make a suit that looks essentially the same as the ones designed in the 80s.

This is fashion. It doesn't matter what it looks like, only who made it or more accurately what everyone says on instagram.

how much did you think it was going to cost for space suits? where do you go for your discount space suits

> where do you go for your discount space suits

Boeing is selling a few right now - discounted price. Contact your nearest Boeing executive.

Retro is very au courant.

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