The Dedly Blog

Electric Cars for Mort. Spacesuit for Me.

I typically like to end the week on a positive note. Even though Kofi Annan has asked the fox to guard the henhouse and Rummy believe dissent is for the weak-minded, I don't want to dwell on the negative today. I've got the remnants of Ernesto to worry about. So, I'll let Olberman rant for me.

Instead, let's look at some yummy technology.

This is a photo of the new space suit prototype in development at MIT. It's creator, Dava Newman (shown here), recognizes that current space suits are way too bulky. Even in reduced gravity environments like LEO, the Moon, and Mars, maneuvering around is awkward. To get an idea how difficult it is, put on some snow pants, your thickest winter coat, and your thickest gloves. Now try to replace the batteries on a small toy. You know, the kind that require a screwdriver to access the battery compartment. Now, double it. You now have some idea as to what astronauts have to go through whenever they leave the safety of their ship.

The reason why they're bulky is because they take a brute force approach to protecting the astronauts, just as knights of old wore suits of armor to protect themselves on the battlefield. Today, policemen and soldiers wear kevlar, a much lighter and flexible form of protection. Astronauts have longed for a similar evolution in their spacesuits.

The prototype here is more like wearing spandex. The suit is composed of a stretchy, skinlike polymer that encases the body in a flexible shrink-wrap, applying pressure that prevents the wearer from being exposed to vacuum of space. Its designer also made it so that it can be outfitted with a variety of sensors (thanks to ever shrinking electronics). You can tell just by looking at the photo that this suit, assuming that it works, is a tremendous advancement for astronauts.

Mort knows that one of my complaints about electric cars is that they're anything but fun. Sometimes, they're nothing more than repurposed golf carts without any regard for weather short of sunny. Well, Wired featured some sporty electric cars that kill the putt putt stereotype. These babies can do 100-200 mph! They're an obvious nod to the electric dragsters that lurk about in the garages of SoCal electro-gearheads. Of course the price tags on these cars make them cost-prohibitive to anyone outside of Hollywood. But history shows that the wealthy are always the first one to buy into new tech. Eventually, as production ramps up, costs come down. The same thing happened with the cars we drive now. Practical electric cars will happen. It's just a question of when.

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DED

posted by DED at 10:23 AM

 Alan P. said...

Sexy x 2!!

9/01/2006 12:18 PM