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Pat Duggins
Pat Duggins
Senior News Analyst
pduggins@wmfe.org


 

August 26, 2008—Competition in the fashion world isn’t limited to Dolce & Gabbana and Tommy Hilfiger. Two companies are battling it out to see who will outfit the next generation of astronauts as the Space Shuttle moves toward retirement and the Orion crew capsule is under construction.

  

You may have blanched at that $200 pair of blue jeans you were looking at the other day while window shopping. Now imagine, the millions of dollars it takes to design and the build the spacesuits NASA astronauts use during missions in orbit and beyond. Two companies are slugging it out over the $745 million dollar contract, and that fight even involved the Government Accounting Office, GAO. Hamilton Sustrand has built NASA’s spacesuits since the 1960’s, but it lost out to Houston based Oceaneering International to make the suits astronauts will wear while flying aboard the new Orion capsule. Hamilton protested, the GAO started an investigation, and NASA decided to hold a second round of bidding before an auditors report could be issued. We're still waiting to see how that turns out.

 

In the old days, Hamilton would custom make spacesuits for each astronaut during the Apollo moon missions. During the days of the Space Shuttle, hundreds of spacewalkers would venture outside wearing Hamilton suits. Rather than build a spacesuit for each astronaut, the Shuttle spacewalker suits came in pieces, so they could be custom assembled to fit each person.  When Orion flies, things will be different. There’s no airlock on the capsule, so when one person does a spacewalk, everybody on the crew does a spacewalk. So the new suits will have to be sturdy enough to float around outside, while compact enough to save room inside the cramped Orion.

 

On the book front, if you’re not busy on Saturday September 13th, join me at the Florida Heritage Book Festival in beautiful St. Augustine. I’ll be giving a talk about “Final Countdown” and signing books afterward. Here’s the link to the event’s web page…

 

http://www.fhbookfest.com/

 

More to come,

 

Photos courtesy of NASA

 

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