Speaker1: Space is now being opened to more people.
You have these citizen and private astronauts.
You have analog astronauts who are simulating missions on the ground.
Let's also make it fashionable and open up space to a broader audience.
And that's what this whole thing is about.
My name is Sabrina Thompson, CEO and founder of Girl in Space Club, where we will be designing the
first women's space travel suit.
Speaker2: An artist by nature, Thompson's apartment is littered with ongoing projects, from paintings to
prints and even shoes.
Speaker1: I have my table set up where I can make art.
I could paint. I can lay out designs.
Like, for instance, here I took a sneaker apart to make my own.
Speaker2: When she's not creating, Thompson works full time as an aerospace engineer for NASA.
Speaker1: This is like just a constellation of spacecraft.
And that little short animation just kind of shows how they all move relative to one another.
As a kid, all I wanted to do, or all I did actually, was make art, play basketball
and play with my Barbies.
It wasn't until my 12th grade year in high school when it was time for me to choose a college that I
found out what an engineer was.
I was the valedictorian of my class, yet everybody knew where they wanted to go to college
except for me. And so my art teacher helped me out a bit solve my dilemma and she suggested,
'why don't you try engineering?' And so I asked, 'what is an engineer?' So I did some research to
find out. Saw that it took a lot of physics, a lot of the sciences, a lot of math.
And so I asked my physics teacher and he's like, 'yeah, you should stick with art.' And so, yeah,
at that time, the type of kid I was, if you told me what like I couldn't do, or if there was any
sense that you doubted me, that was the thing that I would do.
Hence, that's how I became an engineer.
Speaker2: After getting a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Stony Brook University, Thompson
went on to earn a master's in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech.
She joined NASA in 2010 and has been working with the organization for the past 12 years, designing
orbit trajectories for space missions.
Just last year, Thompson finished a second graduate degree in atmospheric physics from the
University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
But she never abandoned her love for art.
Speaker1: One thing that I do outside of NASA is I'm always coming up with cool ideas, like just making things
from scratch.
Speaker2: Some of these creations may end up on Girl in Space Club's website.
Thompson founded the company in 2018, though at the time it was called Launchpad.
Under the direct-to-consumer fashion brand, the 37-year-old sells everything from T-shirts and
jean jackets, to books, backpacks and even NFTs, all of which bring in about $600 a month.
Additionally, Thompson says she makes about $2,000 a month from speaking engagements and
workshops. But the company also has a nonprofit mentorship arm that's very close to Thompson's
heart.
Speaker1: The way things work right now with space and everything like this, it's male dominated and
maybe it'll always be.
Girl in Space Club, it exists to inspire more girls to become
tomorrow's innovators using art, fashion and STEM.
Our ultimate goal for designing this space suit is to add the fashion piece.
The fashion piece is very important to draw more girls into STEM and to space, especially
more girls of color.
Speaker2: Although women ages 25 and older are now represent a majority of the college-educated workforce in
the U.S., they still trail men in many of the STEM fields, particularly in engineering and
computing jobs.
Speaker1: Let's stop trying to get a seat at the table.
How about we get our own table and we sit at it?
Speaker2: For the better part of this year, Thompson's been designing the Girl in Space Club Everyday Flight
Suit, which resembles a stylish jumpsuit.
To get the word out, Thompson and her team thought about launching a Kickstarter campaign,
but quickly shifted gears.
Speaker1: While I was working with folks to help strategize for the campaign, the idea of a space suit
for women came up, and that's how like we started to think about it.
And I'm like, 'that would be cool.' And then I started doing the research and I'm like, 'this is
absolutely necessary.' Like, it's not just cool, it's necessary.
And so here we are.
Speaker2: Thompson says women have always been instrumental in designing space suits, even if there were not
always meant to wear them. In fact, the company that made the original Apollo space suits was none
other than women's undergarment maker Playtex, also known as the International Latex Corporation
or ILC.
Speaker1: Spacesuits have never been designed with women in mind.
I mean, you could think about the sixties when we were in the space race.
There were women who were behind the scenes sewing the suits together, you know.
But it was the guys who were out there going to space.
Speaker2: Thompson and her team at Girl in Space Club will not be designing the typical bulky, white,
Michelin Man spacesuit that NASA astronauts wore on the moon or use on spacewalks today.
This type of extravehicular spacesuit design, known as EVA, acts as a mini spacecraft, providing
astronauts with oxygen, modulating their temperature and protecting them against the
extreme environment of space.
Such suits take years to develop and can cost billions of dollars.
Speaker1: This suit is going to be for launch and entry, right.
So it's inside the vehicle that you wear this suit.
This is a pressurized suit.
So let's just say like when you're on an airplane and there's a loss in cabin pressure, those big
yellow masks come down.
This suit will pressurize, like be pressurized to protect you in the same way.
Speaker2: A number of private companies have already shown off their own versions of in-vehicle space suits.
For its suits, SpaceX turned to costume designer Jose Fernandez, whose movie credits include The
Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Men II.
Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic designed its blue monochromatic spacesuits in partnership with
sportswear brand Under Armour.
But Thompson says there's room for improvement.
Speaker1: I think they're kind of basic.
Definitely very masculine, and they lack color.
Like, to me, I would definitely make the suits a little bit more like, you know, cool and fun to
like look at. Maybe a little bit more sci-fi-ish maybe, or maybe a little bit more
delicate. I'm not quite sure yet.
In designing a women's space travel suit, we would make the bust bigger.
We will make the shoulders less broad, and then we would expand the hips.
Speaker2: Thompson's spacesuit design is still very much in its infancy.
To help bring the project to life, Thompson is putting together a committee of aeronautic and
fashion experts.
Among them are former NASA astronaut Nicole Stott and Patricia Stoll, who's the president of ILC
Dover's Space Systems Division.
The young women from Girl in Space Club will also play a key part in the suit's development.
Thompson says she's not yet sure how much the final spacesuit will cost, but hopes to raise
$75,000 from a month-long Kickstarter campaign, which launched on October 24th.
The everyday flight suit will be available as a prize to those who contribute $600 or more to the
Kickstarter campaign. She hopes the Kickstarter money is enough to cover the R&D and prototype
portion of the project.
Speaker1: Just looking at history, a crew vehicle suit could cost in like the millions.
We're definitely researching different fabrics, different material.
We're going to see how many parts that like we can actually 3D print.
So we're really trying to see where we can save and cut on costs.
But again, that requires a lot of R&D and just understanding and knowing and just kind of doing
our homework to know what has been done before us.
Right now, Thompson says she's deep into researching what patents have been filed that deal
with spacesuit pressurization and trying to see if there's any new technology that her team can
use to make their own pressurized suit.
Once a prototype is ready.
It will have to undergo rigorous testing.
If NASA's involved, meaning like these are suits that NASA's astronauts will wear, then NASA
dictates the safety, the testing and the verification.
However, if not, it's the FAA.
Learning what those regulations are for the FAA, that will be one thing.
Understanding what the mission you're designing to, and this includes the level of exposure or how
long you're going to be in space, what you're going to be doing while you're in space.
Are you going to be working?
Are you going to sit and take a ride?
And is the ride only 15 minutes and you're back down to earth?
Then the requirements and the testing will be different for a longer mission.
Speaker2: Thompson says designs also have to work with the specific launch vehicle.
Speaker1: For instance, if you're taking a ride with SpaceX and you're, you know, you're wearing their suit,
they have a lot of integrated systems embedded in the suit that function with the actual launch
vehicle. So to design a spacesuit for a particular mission or for a particular launch
vehicle provider, these are things that we have to take into account when designing the suit.
Like, is there a way to make a universal suit?
That's something we'll have to research and find out if it's possible.
Speaker2: The work ahead will not be easy, but Thompson likes a challenge.
Speaker1: I have become obsessed about this project, about this business.
Let's go to space. Let's make it look good.