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Comment by currymj | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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...

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 :)

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