In June 2000, here at Johnson Space Center, we will be holding an internal forum to define architectures, requirements, and operations concepts for exploration and other things. This will be our first internal forum in years. This will help us when we have external forums so we can let the EVA community know what NASA needs and is looking for. Organizing the internal forum will be much easier than the external forums. Things we want to learn more about based on the Clemson University forum are tri-axial weaving and soft spacesuit bearings.
Bearings are the rings around the suit - around the shoulders and waist, etc.
On the suits used right now, the bearings are hard, and the suits weigh about 275 pounds, but when we go to Mars, we will need something more light weight - like between 60 and 90 pounds. The persistence it takes to develop this type of technology helps us to begin to understand his nickname. We now have the capability to scan in the human body and build a suit around it, if we decide to. Body scanning technology is changing all the time and becoming more sophisticated. This is the heart of my project.