This Fashion Show is 435 Miles Above Earth

Gone are the days women felt obliged to matched their hats to their gloves. There’s a new fashion-statement in town, and it’s outta this world.

In 2017, NASA Space Suit engineer, Su Curley, spoke at the JFK Presidential library in Boston. Air-supply, pressure, temperature and protection from micro-meteoroids were a few of her primary engineering concerns when wondering how to answer the age old question ~”what to wear when ya wanna go out.” Life-support backpacks,heavy fabrics, and metal struts made strutting in space-suits awkward.

JFK Presidential Library / Museum, Boston

Although the physics of space-life haven’t changed, space fashions have. Today astronauts strut through space with ease.

Photo Credit Sarah Gillis X-account video

EVA suits,( Extra Vehicular Activity) are an essential part of Space X’s Polaris Dawn mission. Light-weight, amor-like fabrications support safety and are more comfortable than vintage suits. Space-age fabrics with flexible weaving adapt to variations of pressurized environments.

This morning, Senior Space Operations Engineer, SpaceX astronaut, Sarah Gillis followed Mission Commander Jared Isaacman out of their 4-person Dragon capsule. 435 miles above fashionistas on the cat-walks of New York City’s fashion-week, the height of orbital-style ‘stems’ from modeling suits designed to test technology.

Photo Credit; Sarah Gillis X-account (8/29/24)

Marvels of sartorial engineering enabled Gillis and Isaacman to explore conditions outside the Dragon capsule for 12 minutes. Cew-members; US Air Force pilot Scott ‘Kidd’ Poteet and Space X engineer, Anna Menon remained inside the capsule and were also depressurized. This first ever commercial space-walk surpassed the accomplishments set by NASA’s space-strutters 50 years ago.

The long-range plan of SpaceX is to reach beyond low-orbit exploration, the international space station and head on to Mars.

While you wait to book passage on the next X-Express, Boston’s Museum of Science is filled with exhibits on space-dynamics. It’s a pretty fun place to explore principals of the universe as well as vintage sartorial space-styles.