Photo: Jeremy Hsu/Space.com
The problem with space travel, fashion-wise, is that spacesuits are bulky and - let's face it - not very chic. Thankfully, private spacesuit designers Nikolay Moiseev and Ted Southern solved this problem:
A spacesuit model arched his back experimentally, flashed the thumbs up and struck other poses that drew chuckles from the crowd gathered inside the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center. He showed off a bright yellow pressure suit topped by the dome of a roomy space helmet, with a blue glove on the right hand and a black glove on the left hand.
The blue glove was designed by Moscow-based spacesuit engineer Nikolay Moiseev, who built in unprecedented flexibility at the metacarpal knuckles of the hand. The black glove represented a single-layer design made from urethane by Brooklyn-based inventor and artist Ted Southern, which reduced the torque required to move the fingers to practically nothing.
"In the future, our plan is to actually blend the two and make a low-torque, single-layer, metacarpal glove," Southern said to the assembled crowd. "And it's going to happen."