This browser does not support the Video element.
Meet the team behind Artemis III spacesuit
Axiom Space hired 10 people to design and construct the spacesuit of the future. It will be worn by the next NASA astronauts to step foot on the moon --hopefully in 2025. The new suit is a lot different from the ones used the first time around -- more than 50 years ago.
Axiom Space hired 10 people to design and construct the spacesuit of the future.
It will be worn by the next NASA astronauts to step foot on the moon --hopefully in 2025. The new suit is a lot different from the ones used the first time around -- more than 50 years ago.
FOX 35 talked to three of the people who helped design and construct the new blue and orange suit.
Stella Elmore worked for NASA back in the 1980s and came out of retirement for this new challenge.
"I think it's great. I worked so many years and I retired and came back and it is more exciting now than it was before," she said.
Elmore said she made the trousers, the light blue trousers, and the jackets that had the expandable back. They also made all kinds of bags. She was even able to meet Sally Ride, the first American woman to visit space.
Zach Paugh is making the gloves for the new suit.
Before coming to Axiom, he designed costumes for Cirque De Soleil" and worked on the show "KA" in Las Vegas.
He is also a lover of everything Star Wars and makes his own outfits for cosplay events, so designing a spacesuit was right up his alley.
"There are a lot of Star Wars and Star Trek fans here, so we talk Star Wars and Trek lines all the time, so it's a good time," he said.
Pamela Cooper designed men's underwear for Calvin Klein before coming to Axiom.
"People joke that lingerie is the rocket science of fashion because you have to deal with so many contours on the body," she said. "It is the hardest part of the body to make patterns for, but a spacesuit is a lot harder to make."
Just like with underwear, with the new suit, comfort is key.
In addition to being softer than the old one, the new suits – technically referred to as the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) – are also interchangeable in order to fit almost every astronaut no matter their size or gender.
"We have a standard of 8 arms, 4 legs and then we have like 3 different sizes for small, medium, large. We are thinking about small people, women, big men."