You okay?
Yeah.
Okay.
What happens if you fall over?
Uh, it hurts.
I’ve been lucky enough to watch people launch to orbit, but I’ve had to stay behind here
on Earth.
And unfortunately, being a reporter doesn’t really qualify me to be an astronaut.
But it does let me pretend to dress like one.
That means one thing: space suits.
I can really see myself in this.
Get it?
Because it’s reflective!
Designing a space suit is an incredibly complicated process, combining knowledge of textiles,
engineering, biology, and atmospheric science.
That means there’s no one-size-fits-all for a suit.
Right now, astronauts going to the International Space Station have a specialized suit geared
for spacewalks in lower Earth orbit.
But different suits will be needed if we want to go elsewhere in the Solar System, and they’ll
have to be tailored to the place an astronaut is going.
Luckily, I’ve found a place that will let me cosplay as a future planetary explorer.
We’re here in the great state of North Dakota.
The university here has a Human Spaceflight Laboratory where they make prototype space
suits for going to the Moon or to Mars.
And they said I get to try one on.
This is Pablo de León, a professor here at the University of North Dakota, and the head
of the lab.
And that lifeless form on the table between us?
That’s a prototype space suit for Mars called the NDX-1 that I’m about to try on.
It’s been tested out in some extreme environments, including Antarctica and simulated Martian
surfaces at NASA, so it’s the real deal.
But first, I want to know what it takes to make a space suit.
It's very difficult to contain a human inside basically what is a bag full of oxygen.
Yeah.
So, you know, you have to create it in a way that is mobile, that is comfortable for the
astronaut, that is safe and will protect him or her from the vacuum and all the other dangers
that are in space.
When you design a suit you have to take into consideration the environment, and you have
to study that particular place.
For example, we use a Mars simulant that simulates the characteristics of Mars soil, because
we don’t have any Mars soil yet here on Earth.
So basically, it's dust, gravity, and atmospheric composition.
Mars may be cold, but it can definitely get hot inside a confined suit.
In order to control temperature, astronauts use a full-body liquid-cooling garment.
This garment contains tubing that circulates cold water, removing heat from the skin.
It’s something astronauts already use when they do their spacewalks.
As you can imagine, it’s slightly uncomfortable, but will prevent you from overheating.
I won’t be wearing this today, but I will need to change my clothes before I get suited
up.
Alright, suit me up.
Alright.
So, there are some restrictions when it comes to filming someone getting into a space suit.
We weren’t allowed to film me actually putting it on because of some international regulations.
I didn’t really mind because getting into such a bulky suit isn’t exactly the most
graceful experience.
So, clearly this is a three- or four-person job.
I’m assuming it’s going to be not fun on Mars either.
Just doing it on Earth is a bit of a chore.
The first thing you feel is how heavy and restricting it is.
It’s about 30 pounds here on Earth that you’re mostly carrying on your shoulders.
Fortunately, Mars has one-third the gravity of Earth, so the suit would feel slightly
lighter over there.
Plus, it didn’t fit me exactly right, so my fingers didn’t quite reach all the way
in the gloves.
And then they pressurized it, which made things even more difficult.
You ready?
I’m ready.
Whoa.
Ears are definitely popping.
How does anyone move in this at all?
Being in a bag of Earth’s atmosphere feels a bit like walking in a giant balloon.
I was getting a workout just trying to keep my arms where I wanted them.
It proved challenging when it came to performing simple tasks.
Oh yeah!
There you go.
Okay, you got it.
That was piece of cake.
It’s very clear that roaming around Mars won’t be as easy as going for a simple walk.
But all of this discomfort is just a necessary byproduct of keeping astronauts alive.
And it’s quite an engineering feat that I was able to perform tasks in a suit that’s
designed to protect me from an alien environment like Mars.
And you are out.
Oh my goodness.
You survived.
Okay, we’ll get you out of the suit.
Alright?
Let’s just say, Mars will not be comfortable.
After breaking out of the Mars suit and wiping off the sweat, I was ready to head to my next
location: the Moon.
Well, sort of.
We tried on the Martian space suit, which was... intense.
So we’ve come to a much easier environment: the lunar surface, which is only one-sixth
the Earth’s gravity.
Basically, I’m going to start my day on the Moon in the lunar habitat, make my way
through this tube to the rover, and then dive into this suit and go for a Moon walk.
The cool thing about this is that this is the only place that you can go from a habitat
to a rover to a suit and then boots on the ground in one seamless system.
So, the fact that we get to try this out today is pretty cool.
So here we are in the habitat.
And you’ve got your basics, you know: a place to sleep, a fridge, a kitchen.
But right now I need to leave the hab and go to my rover.
It’s a bit like Discovery Zone.
Alright, now we are in the rover.
But we’re not driving today.
I need to get in my suit.
Okay.
There we go.
Let me know when you reach the end of the boots.
I needed a bit of help to get my legs into place, and then I was ready to pull the release
and have a bit of fun.
Pull down.
No, just one.
There you go.
And there you are!
Step down.
Alright!
Frolicking in the lunar suit was a bit easier at first.
It was a training suit, so it weighed less and I wasn’t fully pressurized.
Also this suit was slightly more spacious, making it easier to grip and maneuver.
But after a while, it still got incredibly hot and doing sprints tired me out.
Time for a nap.
I have a new respect for people who go to space now.
My main takeaway from all of this: designing a space suit means thinking about thousands
of different problems that don’t immediately come to mind.
And floating around the outside of the station requires a completely different type of suit
than one for a Mars expedition or one for a lunar base.
Plus, a suit that can keep people alive in these extreme environments isn’t exactly
the easiest thing to work in.
To be fair, I had Earth’s atmosphere and gravity working against me.
But it’s clear I need a lot more training before I can work for hours in
a space suit.