Gear Checks , NASA you may want my SPL and PL's

[RememberSchiff]

My SPL and his PL's do a gear check before our troop goes out. Clothing is particularly important as having the necessary and proper layers and footwear contribute to successful activities. Thousands of other scout troops do the same.

History was supposed to be made Friday when, for the first time, two female astronauts were scheduled to do a spacewalk together outside the International Space Station. However, one of the astronauts was switched out this week because of a lack of "spacesuit availability." 

PPPPPP. Be Prepared.

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/26/706779637/nasa-scraps-first-all-female-spacewalk-for-want-of-a-medium-sized-spacesuit

Edited March 27, 2019 by RememberSchiff

[qwazse]

I'd like to see the fundraiser that your SPL would pull off to get your QM that extra $15million suit!

P.S. - Some folks in town are working on the next gen suit. It really is a nationwide endeavor.

[AltadenaCraig]

4 hours ago, qwazse said:

I'd like to see the fundraiser that your SPL would pull off to get your QM that extra $15million suit!

P.S. - Some folks in town are working on the next gen suit. It really is a nationwide endeavor.

According to the "Interplanetary Chief Astronaut", in 1961 such a suit cost $18,000.  But then it did have "two pair of pants".

[sketch below from "The Ed Sullivan Show", portions of which featured in "The Right Stuff", book & movie]

 

Edited March 27, 2019 by AltadenaCraig

[mds3d]

Maybe don't be too hard on NASA. 

https://www.popsci.com/women-spacewalk-spacesuit-nasa

Essentially there are two sizes of spacesuit, medium and large.  One each was ready for a space walk.  On another spacewalk, one astronaut found that she fit better in the medium.  So the options are to change who is going to walk, or to prep the other medium suit.  Prepping the other medium suit takes time (a lot), might have delayed the walk, and might have not worked at all.  So, NASA decided that it made more sense to change who was going to make this walk, and have the the other astronaut take a later spacewalk.  

NASA also never set out to have the "first all female spacewalk," it just happened this way. 

[RememberSchiff]

Thanks for the link, but I think it supports my criticism 

 "...many have speculated that NASA’s decision was a symptom of flawed, biased logistics"

 Hugo Award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal  tweeted Tuesday afternoon emphasizing that the spacesuits, originally designed more than 40 years ago, were meant to have only a 15-year lifespan and be refurbished periodically to mitigate and repair wear and tear. Only four of the original 18 are aboard the ISS. “When NASA says there’s not one readily available, it’s sort of like...yeah. There’s one up there, but we aren’t sure it won’t leak,” Kowal wrote.

 If we had more spacesuits, and ones in smaller sizes, it’s possible all of this could have been avoided. And if NASA had been more inclusive toward women since its inception, perhaps we would have had them. Kowal’s Twitter thread noted that when NASA nixed its small and XL suit sizes due to budget cuts, “many of the male astronauts could not fit into the L suits, so the XLs were brought back.” But the smallest suits weren’t.

IMO, Atlantic Monthly has a more detailed article. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/nasa-spacesuit-women-spacewalk/585805/

Today astronauts still use the same 40-year-old space suits; NASA hasn’t made any new ones since they were designed. Several have been lost over the years including in the Challenger and Columbia disasters and in a SpaceX cargo mission that exploded in 2015.

...In the past decade, NASA has spent nearly $200 million on space-suit development for future missions, including to Mars, but “the agency remains years away from having a flight-ready spacesuit capable of replacing the EMU or suitable for use on future exploration missions,”

Reality is stranger (dumber) than fiction and news reports.

My SPL stands ready. He was also a QM, as alll SPL's should be. 

My $0.02

P.S.  This just in ... "NASA is willing to pay participants about nearly $19,000 to spend two whole months watching TV in bed. " No explanation why NASA  did not just observe bedridden, medical patients. 

Edited March 29, 2019 by RememberSchiff

[mds3d]

9 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

 

P.S.  This just in ... "NASA is willing to pay participants about nearly $19,000 to spend two whole months watching TV in bed. " No explanation why NASA  did not just observe bedridden, medical patients. 

That's easy. Because bedridden medical patient's aren't the same as studying the effect of staying in bed for otherwise healthy individuals.  Medical patients would introduce too many confounding variables. I'm not sure what they research was designed to evaluate, but I can guarantee that sick people aren't good analogues for healthy people. 

[qwazse]

The company line, with links to tweets:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/spacewalk-reassignments-what-s-the-deal