250,000-dollars bounty for NASA's spacesuit glove designing contest

NASA has announced a 250,000 dollars 'Astronaut Glove Challenge' to be held on May 2-3 in an effort to encourage innovation in designing more flexible spacesuit gloves.

London, May 1 : NASA has announced a 250,000 dollars 'Astronaut Glove Challenge' to be held on May 2-3 in an effort to encourage innovation in designing more flexible spacesuit gloves.

For an astronaut, gloves are possibly the most important part of the spacesuit. In addition to cranking levers and handling power drills, astronauts use their hands, rather than their feet, as their primary mode of "walking" around the International Space Station (ISS).

Current gloves use two inner layers, a rubbery balloon-like layer surrounded by cloth to help keep the glove's shape, and an outer shield that protects against micrometeoroids and orbital debris and insulates the hands against the extreme temperatures of space.

The gloves are also pressurised, making it difficult for the astronauts to move their fingers. As a result, astronauts often do hand-strengthening exercises to prepare for spacewalks, which can last six hours or more. The labour-intensive spacewalks often leave astronauts' hands bruised and pinched and their fingernails bent backwards.

Now, NASA has offered 200,000 dollars for a 'bladder restraint' glove competition and 50,000 dollars for a 'mechanical counterpressure' glove competition.

A bladder restraint glove is similar to the two inner layers of today's spacesuit gloves: a rubbery layer surrounded by cloth.

On the other hand, a mechanical counterpressure glove fits elastically to the body like a second skin.

As part of the tests, the gloves will be measured and weighed, and one of the pair will undergo a "burst challenge" test, wherein the glove will be pumped full of water until it springs a leak. Organisers will measure the water pressure at the glove's breaking point, making this part of the competition basically a strength test for the gloves.

Later, the surviving half of the glove pair will be put through a flexibility test.

The wrist end of the glove will be capped and pressurised to 0.29 atmospheres (4.3 pounds per square inch). Then, contest organisers will measure how well the glove flexes under pressure.

In addition, the gloves will also be tested for their comfort level.

The participating teams will have one of their members put on the glove, which will be put in a glove box with a pressure 71 percent to that of the average pressure at sea level on Earth (10.4 pounds per square inch). This will replicate the pressure difference between a pressurised spacesuit and the vacuum of space.

The team member will then squeeze a ball for 30 minutes. Every five minutes, organisers will take pictures of his hand to check for any abrasions, bruises, blisters or other damage.

"If blood comes dripping out of the hand, they lose that part. They have no incentive to play through the pain, even though that's what astronauts do," said Ken Davidian, who runs the Centennial Challenges for NASA.

In each of the tests, all of the gloves will have to perform better than the existing spacesuit glove. The team with the glove that scores highest in the three tests and also beats the existing spacesuit glove will take home the 200,000 dollars prize, reports New Scientist.

ANI