O'Keefe Quoted in BBC Article on the Need for New Spacesuits

November 29, 2021

BBC

Sean O'Keefe

Maxwell in Washington, D.C.

Campbell Public Affairs Institute

Government

Space Exploration

United States

BBC

Sean O'Keefe

Little has changed in the way of spacesuits since 1983 and now NASA's Johnson Space Center has called for private sector proposals for new ones. They would be used for spacewalks on the International Space Station (ISS) and during future Artemis missions to the surface of the moon. University Professor Sean O'Keefe says that he is not really surprised that the space agency has turned to the private sector for help. "Every variant of every space suit NASA has ever used was developed in concert with the private sector," says O'Keefe.

He adds that NASA's control over the performance requirements for the suit has largely been driven by the fact that only government-sponsored and trained astronauts have lived and worked in space and that has now changed. "Now that the commercial space industry has demonstrated an ability to develop a space access transportation market, these companies will surely come up with new ideas on operational performance characteristics based on their evolving experiences," O'Keefe says. Read more in the BBC article, "Upcoming Moon missions spur the search for new spacesuits."