The first people to walk on the moon in more than 50 years will be wearing Prada. The Italian fashion house has partnered with Axiom Space, which won the contract for the first full redesign of US spacesuits in decades, to design and produce spacesuits for the Artemis III mission planned for 2025, Designboom reports. The first crewed mission to the moon's surface since 1972 will bring the first female astronaut to the moon. Prada marketing director Lorenzo Bertelli says the company will use its "decades of experimentation, cutting-edge technology and design know-how," which started with its involvement in the America's Cup in the 1990s.
"Prada's technical expertise with raw materials, manufacturing techniques, and innovative design concepts will bring advanced technologies instrumental in ensuring not only the comfort of astronauts on the lunar surface, but also the much-needed human factors considerations absent from legacy spacesuits," Axiom Space CEO Michael Suffredini said in a statement. Former astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman, now a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, says Prada's experience in composite fabrics means it could "make some real technical contributions to the outer layers of the new spacesuit."
But people shouldn't expect to see "paisley spacesuits or any fancy patterns like that. Maintaining a good thermal environment is really the critical thing," Hoffman tells the BBC. "A spacesuit is really like a miniature spacecraft. It has to provide pressure, oxygen, keep you at a reasonable temperature," says Hoffman, who logged more than 1,200 hours in space and four spacewalks during five Space Shuttle missions. (More spacesuit stories.)
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