Project Inspiration

This project has been inspired by the question I asked myself several years back.
How would I be able to:
1) **follow** the religion I believe in 
2) **represent** myself as who I am - a Muslim woman
while wearing my own spacesuit for space exploration...

[so I reached out to Ryan Nagata, a spacesuit replica-maker to design a special
type of helmet for me 😄, but then...]

**I realized spacesuit has additional problems than to just accomodate my hijab
(+ niqab) in the helmet...**

Spacesuit Replicas

https://ryannagata.com/portfolio/spacesuits

Artist: Ryan Nagata

Let's compare both of these (special) garments:
****

1. Project Summary

What’s wrong with our current space suits?

We are running out of Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMA) or Extravehicular spacesuits because they are not easily to be built.

NASA’s current crop of spacesuits, or EMUs, have two different components: 
the Pressure Garment System, or PGS, 
and the Primary Life Support System, or PLSS. 

The PGS is responsible for maintaining pressure around the astronauts 
(as we need a minimum of 3 pounds per square inch of oxygen for our bodies 
to function), while the PLSS is basically a life-support backpack. It provides 
temperature control, oxygen, and scrubs carbon dioxide. **The problem is, there 
are only 4 working spacesuits and 11 functional PLSSs left, out of an original 18.**

- PasteMagazine, Space Matter: The Trouble with Spacesuits, Swapna Krishna (2017)

Spacesuit that is supposed to be custom fitted to the height, size, and comfort of the individual astronaut and aim to provide the broadest range of motion for activities in space, NASA currently has one-size fit all spacesuits for astronauts!

Back in March 2019, NASA canceled plans for the first all-woman spacewalk 
because there weren’t enough correctly sized spacesuits—only larger ones were
available.

- MIT Technology Review, "Current spacesuits won’t cut it on the moon. 
So NASA made new ones.",  [Neel V. Patel](<https://www.technologyreview.com/author/neel-v-patel/>) (2020)

The old-fashioned spacesuits are now wearing out after 40 years! Despite the fact that they are upgraded, modified, and refurbished since Space Shuttle program, they are still originally designed to last fifteen years.

We need a high-mobililty suits for planetary exploration rather than current balloony ones only used for space walks!

**Forget the Moon and the Mars. Other planets seem out of the question for now!**

According to NASA’s own investigations and a report from the NASA Office of the 
Inspector General, the current plan to maintain and support the station with the 
spacesuits we currently have will be a real challenge. 
Right now, the ISS is scheduled to be operated through the year 2024. It’s likely
that will be extended through the year 2028.

- PasteMagazine, Space Matter: The Trouble with Spacesuits, Swapna Krishna (2017)

The continuous use and the extension of the maintenance of the spacesuits are making the space exploration un-promising and even more risky for the endangering astronauts.

**The suits were originally authorized for a single Shuttle mission before 
maintenance.** In 2000, that interval was extended to 1 year. That continued to
increase until 2008, when the “ground maintenance interval [was] extended to
6 years, with in-flight maintenance and additional ground processing,” 
NASA OIG Analysis of EVA Office Information.

- PasteMagazine, Space Matter: The Trouble with Spacesuits, Swapna Krishna (2017)

Heavy and massive.