News Bytes of the Week Tres Haute Fashion: Astronauts Get New Duds [News]
Very haute fashion: Astronauts get new dudsIt's fashion week for future astronauts. NASA this week chose a contractor to make spiffy new spacesuits for astronauts on the post-shuttle Constellation program, which the agency hopes will take U.S. space travelers back to the moon by 2020. The current space shuttle fleet faces mandatory retirement in 2010, and Constellation missions are set to begin in 2015. NASA has already awarded contracts for the program's Orion crew capsule and the Ares 1 rocket to launch it. This week NASA put the latest piece of hardware into place, awarding a preliminary six-year, $183.8-million contract to Oceaneering International, Inc., of Houston to design and build a basic spacesuit (for launches, landings and emergencies) as well as a suit for astronauts to wear during their stays on the moon. Oceaneering International beat out a joint venture by leading spacesuit contractors United Technologies Corporation's Hamilton Sundstrand of Windsor Locks, Conn., and ILC Dover, LP, of Frederica, Del., for the new contract, which could be worth up to $745 million when all is said and done, according to Reuters. [More]