NASA has shown off a new generation of spacesuits tailored for future moonwalking astronauts. The US space agency says the new suits make it much easier to walk, bend and squat when walking on the lunar surface.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/L. Jie
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When US astronauts next touch down on the moon, expect them to walk almost as they do on Earth, thanks to new spacesuits NASA unveiled on Tuesday in Washington.
Standing in front of a giant US flag, two NASA engineers showed off the new spacesuits, modeling and doing squats and crunches in front of a crowd of students and reporters to reveal what the first zero-gravity space-wear under NASA's Artemis moon program would look like.
The suits, NASA said, offer key advantages over those of the Apollo-era. They make it much easier to walk, bend and squat when walking on the lunar surface, Amy Ross, NASA's lead spacesuit engineer, said.
One suit of orange fabric will be worn by astronauts when inside the spacecraft. Astronauts will wear a much bigger mostly white suit on the lunar surface.
Another key innovation is the suit's unlimited capacity to absorb carbon dioxideImage: picture-alliance/Photoshot/Liu Jie
A major upgrade
The new suits come as a much-needed upgrade to NASA's astronaut wardrobe. "This is the first suit we've designed in about 40 years," Chris Hansen, a manager at NASA's spacesuit design office, said.
"What you saw today was a prototype of the pressure garment. The life support system is back in a lab in Houston," he said. "We want systems that allow our astronauts to be scientists on the surface of the moon."
Another key innovation is the suit's unlimited capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, a byproduct of respiration that is also poisonous in high quantities.
It achieves this through a system that both absorbs and then removes the gas into the vacuum of space, unlike current systems that merely absorb it until its reaches a saturation point.
President Donald Trump's administration in March directed NASA to land humans on the moon by 2024, accelerating a goal to colonize the moon as a staging ground for eventual missions to Mars.
The Artemis mission plans to land on the moon's South Pole to access its water ice, discovered in 2009, both for life support purposes and to split into hydrogen and oxygen for use as rocket propellant.
World marks 50 years since the Apollo 11 moon landing
With parties, speeches and artistic displays, the world has marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission which brought men to the lunar surface. NASA showcased its new spacecraft for future flights to the moon.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Harnik
Monument to Apollo 11
Americans showed their pride over the 1969 moon landing with events across the country. The Washington Monument, a 169-meter (555 feet) pillar of marble in the US capital, was turned into a display with images of the lunar mission and a moving projection of the 111-meter Saturn V rocket, which took the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/A. Harnik
Footsteps of giants
US Vice President Mike Pence (left) praised the Apollo 11 team as "heroes" at a celebration at the US spaceport Cape Canaveral. Half a century ago, a team consisting of pilot Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin (right) and Neil Armstrong took off from the US base to reach Earth's natural satellite. Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, died in 2012.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/AP Photo/J. Raoux
Catching some sun
This picture, taken by Armstrong, shows Aldrin planting a long sheet of foil designed to capture material radiated by the sun. The two men stayed on the lunar surface for a little over 2 1/2 hours. On Saturday, NASA replayed the original broadcast of the landing seen by half a billion people in 1969.
Image: NASA
Watching 'The Dish' from Down Under
Australians also marked the Apollo 11 anniversary by gathering around the Parkes Radio Telescope for a screening of the 2000 film "The Dish." The movie tells the story of Australians and NASA employees working together and using the Parkes telescope to support the moon landing. Parkes was one of three tracking stations around the world tasked with beaming live pictures of the event.
Image: picture-alliance/ZUMAPRESS/C. Khoury
Labyrinthine tribute
In Wistow, Leicestershire, east of Birmingham, the owners of an 8-acre maze that attracts more than 25,000 visitors every summer chose to mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landing with a design depicting an astronaut.
Image: picture-alliance/empics/J. Giddens
Putting people on the moon
Further south in London, the city marked the jubilee by showing a mosaic image of the moon at Piccadilly Circus at the moment of the 1969 touchdown. British artist Helen Marshall created the image out of thousands of photos sent by members of the public. The mosaic was projected simultaneously in London, New York and Singapore.
Image: picture-alliance/empics/Yui Mok
A view of home
In Shanghai, an artistic installation by UK artist Luke Jerram shows a high-definition image of the Earth taken in 1972. When people view the installation from 211 meters (about 700 feet) away, it would be exactly the same as the view from the moon in 1969. To make the experience more vivid, there are over 1,000 square meters of simulated moon land, where visitors can leave their footprints.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/Jiang Xiaowei
Going to Mars via the moon
NASA plans to send new astronauts to the moon by 2024 with its Artemis program, named after the goddess and twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. The program is set to include a platform that would orbit the moon, called Gateway, with astronauts traveling in the Orion crew capsule (pictured). The ultimate goal, however, is much further away: a journey to Mars.
Image: Imago Images/ZumaPress/B. Smegelsky
Space flight doesn't stop
While the Apollo 11 veterans attended the celebrations in the US, a team of astronauts took off for the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The team includes American Andrew Morgan, Russian Alexander Skvortsov, and Italian Luca Parmitano. The trio modeled their mission patches after the ones used by the famous 1969 team.
