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 HOUSTON (AP) - In labs at Johnson Space Center, away from the buzz about NASA's new spaceship and its new missions to the moon and Mars, a group of engineers are plodding away at another piece of the puzzle: spacesuits. Astronaut apparel has evolved over the decades from Mercury's aluminum foil-looking outfits to the bulky, 275-pound whites now used on jaunts outside the space station. While it's too early in the process to know how the new suits will look, the space agency is hoping to make new suits both high-tech and low-maintenance.
"Finding the right balance is always going to be a challenge," said veteran astronaut Jeff Williams, who has donned both the complex American suit and the spare Russian suit. "It's trade-offs."
The U.S. suits are easier to work in for long periods of time, but their complexity causes more maintenance. The one-size-fits-all Russian suits are used a few times and thrown away, but they're also not as easy to work in.
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