ADVANCED TEXTILES
SPACE SPORTSWEAR The Final Frontier Has Never Been So Fashionable By Marie O’Mahony
pace provides a very unique environment in which to build products with particular attributes that can’t be built terrestrially. The value is there, from research and development (R&D) to generating new value pool and business models. In a 2022 article on the potential offered by the near-vacuum state of the atmosphere in space, as well as higher levels of radiation and micro gravity for R&D and manufacturing, McKinsey & Company points to the increase in the number of patents with “microgravity” in their title or abstract as rising from a mere 21 in 2000 to 155 in 2020. At the Advanced Textiles Association EXPO 2023, this was one of the hottest topics with speakers from NASA, Columbia Sportswear, Axiom Space, Aegis Aerospace and Kuraray America – all entering the debate exchanging their thoughts, experiences, and future direction. As plans for the Artemis III trip to the moon (that will be the first landing since Apollo 17) gather pace, Evelyn Orndoff, Non-metallic Materials Engineer at the NASA Johnson Space Center ( JSC) is clear about the many challenges faced, saying, “The lunar South Pole adventure represents the greatest thermal challenge for visitors and machine because of its temperatures, its daylight and night times, and its craters.”
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The Artemis III spacesuit prototype, the AxEMU. Though this prototype uses a dark gray cover material, the final version will likely be all-white when worn by NASA astronauts on the Moon’s surface. Axiom Space
28 IFJ ISSUE 1 2024
