Friday, January 9, 2015

NASA Selects Commercial Space Partners for Collaborative Partnerships - December 23, 2014 - RELEASE 14-341

Some of the emails from NASA included a press release for Collaborative Partnerships where companies can have access to some NASA resources but no money changes hands.
The company that caught my eye was Final Frontier Design in Brooklyn New York.
Other companies in the past have and are making space suits so you wonder what will happen with this new wannabe.
Some history may be of interest.
- LRK -

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December 23, 2014
NASA Selects Commercial Space Partners for Collaborative Partnerships

NASA announced Tuesday the selection of four U.S. companies to collaborate with NASA through unfunded partnerships to develop new space capabilities available to the government and other customers. The partnerships build on the success of NASA's commercial spaceflight initiatives to leverage NASA experience and expertise into new capabilities.

The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative is designed to advance private sector development of integrated space capabilities through access to NASA’s spaceflight resources and ensure emerging products or services are commercially available to government and non-government customers within approximately the next five years.

The companies selected for the Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities and their projects are:

* ATK Space Systems, in Beltsville, Maryland, is developing space logistics, hosted payload and other space transportation capabilities.

* Final Frontier Design, in Brooklyn, New York, is developing intra-vehicular activity space suits.

* Space Exploration Technologies, in Hawthorne, California, is developing space transportation capabilities that could be used to support missions into deep space.

* United Launch Alliance, in Centennial, Colorado, is developing new launch vehicle capabilities to reduce cost and enhance performance.

“Companies in all shapes and sizes are investing their own capital toward innovative commercial space capabilities,” said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "These awards demonstrate the diversity and maturity of the commercial space industry. We look forward to working with these partners to advance space capabilities and make them available to NASA and other customers in the coming years.”
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For more information about NASA initiatives and commercial space, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/commercial

For more information about the CSCC solicitation, which was released March 31, visit:

http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov/ccsc

For more information about the Lunar CATALYST initiative, go to:

http://go.nasa.gov/1Gv76kv

For more information about the 18 selected proposals for studies under the Asteroid Redirect Mission Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), go to:

http://go.nasa.gov/1sr6sRn

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A look at  Final Frontier Design.
- LRK -

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 Final Frontier Design

Space Craft

We are a private design firm crafting aerospace safety garments for the future of space travel.

The Space Suit Experience

Imagine yourself wearing a real space suit, performing astronaut-oriented tasks, and piloting your own craft on the Moon while pressurized in our flight simulator!

We invite you to visit our design studio, see how space suits are made, try out our latest prototype gloves in a negative pressure glove box and help contribute actual data in our live testing environment.

Prior participants have included former NASA astronauts and astronaut trainers, private citizen astronauts, and aspiring astronauts like yourself. Come join us and be a part of the growing commercial space industry!



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So are all space suits really for space or maybe for a PR shot.
Near space, space, outer space, pick your space.
Take a look at Orbital Outfitters.
- LRK -

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  1. http://orbitaloutfitters.com/about-us/
    Orbital Outfitters

  2. Orbital Outfitters is a NewSpace company that provides a range of services to vehicle developers and other companies in the aerospace sector. Our two primary lines of business are the development of space and pressure suits and the fabrication of full scale vehicle mockups for either engineering or PR purposes.

    We have assembled a top-level team of experts, craftspeople and manufacturers in the fields of space suit theory, design, manufacture and utilization, including human factors, space medicine and engineering. Supported by a business, legal, policy and marketing group, our team has the breadth and depth to support the growth of a strong new leader in the field of human life support and safety systems for use in space, while also pursuing and creating new markets here on Earth.

    We are incrementally developing our products and customer base, beginning with the suborbital human space flight market.

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  4. And of course space suits get planned for missions that get canceled like Constellation Space Suit.- LRK -
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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_Space_Suit
  5. The Constellation Space Suit was a planned full pressure suit system that would have served as an intra-vehicular activity (IVA) and extra-vehicular activity (EVA) garment for the proposed Project Constellation flights, which were planned to begin after the Space Shuttle retired. The design of the suit was announced by NASA on June 11, 2008, and it will be manufactured by Houston, Texas-based Oceaneering International, the first company other than theDavid Clark CompanyHamilton Sundstrand, and ILC Dover (and, before 1964, B.F. Goodrich) to produce life-support hardware, as a prime contractor, for in-flight space use.
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  7. Some companies date back to Apollo, like ILC Dover.
    - LRK -
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILC_Dover

ILC Dover, LP (also known as ILC) is an American special engineering development and manufacturing company based in Frederica, Delaware. ILC specializes in the use of high-performance flexible materials, serving the aerospace, personal protection, andpharmaceutical industries.

Best known for making space suits for NASA, ILC outfitted every United States astronaut in the Apollo program, including the twelve that walked on the moon. ILC also designed and manufactured the Space Suit Assembly portion of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), worn by astronauts during performance of extra-vehicular activity (EVA) on Space Shuttle missions and on the International Space Station.

Other ILC products include the airbag landing devices for Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover (MER) missions; lighter-than-air vehicles, including airships, aerostats, and zeppelins; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) masks and hood systems; and flexible powder-containment solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.
Apollo Spacesuit worn by Buzz Aldrin
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  1. PDF from NASA History on space suits.
    http://history.nasa.gov/spacesuits.pdf
    Space Suit Evolution
    From Custom Tailored To Off-The-Rack
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  3. Are you ready to suit up to go to the Moon?
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WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK -

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