NASA Unveils New Astronaut Suits Made With Laser Cutters and 3D Printers to Fit Both Men and Women

Consider this a lunar fashion show as astronauts heading to the moon are getting a new wardrobe.

Previous space missions saw astronauts in bulky space suits that were difficult to maneuver in.

"Working against that suit was demanding. Squeezing the gloves, moving the arms, trying to bend over, it was exhausting,” Charlie Duke, the 10th person on the moon, told CBS News in 2019. 

The newest class of moonwalkers will don a new design, outsourced by NASA to be made by Axiom Space.

“The product we're making, their life is going to depend on that. So it's something we take extremely seriously,” Russell Ralston of Axion Space told CBS News. “I think this suit is going to have a huge leap forward in terms of mobility.”

The suits will be precision made with laser cutters and 3D printers.

And for the first time, these space suits will be made to fit both male and female astronauts, which is something Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who completed 10 spacewalks and holds the record for American with the most time spent in space, said she would have loved to have while working in the field.

“In some of them, I couldn't even get my hands together,” she told CBS News of the suits she wore. “That makes it hard to do a lot of delicate and detailed tasks.”

The new suits will undergo years of testing before being put to the real lunar test.

The Artemis 3 mission to the south pole of the moon is slated for 2025.

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