Once an astronaut is outside the orbiter, the spacesuit has to provide everything that person needs. Those functions include breathing, of course, plus communication, heating and cooling, cardiovascular monitoring, and even protection from tiny meteors. Then I joined the fire department in high school and learned to do search, rescue and recovery. When he reached his senior year, with its strong emphasis on hands-on design and applications, his enthusiasm for the field intensified. Then, serendipitously, Del Rosso's involvement in an extracurricular research project provided a life-altering experience.
Astronauts encounter similar risks because air pressure in a spacesuit is lower than normal.
After completing his bachelor of science degree, Del Rosso parlayed his schooling and life experiences into a job with Ocean Systems Engineering, an ocean engineering firm that was interested in breaking into the aerospace field. Again, Del Rosso's academic training, combined with his diverse personal interests, took him into rarefied territory. His role, however, went far beyond the basics. In other words, even if two critically important systems fail in a spacesuit, the astronaut inside must still be able to survive. We don't want to put an astronaut in a suit to re-create a failure.