Back in the spring of 2019, NASA was supposed to reach the milestone of launching the first all-women space walk.
It didn’t happen because there weren’t two medium-sized space suits that fit women. NASA rocket scientist Sabrina Thompson made a point of fixing this deficit and considering the needs of women in space by designing space suits for female astronauts.
To be sure, Thompson isn’t designing the bulky white Extra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) suits that you see on MTV Video Music Award statues. Through her participation in the Baltimore-based SEW BROMO fashion incubator for seven months, Thompson will be working on designing and testing the suits astronauts would wear in the shuttle on the way to space or underneath the space suit. These clothes need to withstand three Gs of G-Force, or around three times the Earth’s gravity. To date, these suits have not been specifically made with women in mind. Thompson aims to change this with her new designs.
“Space has really been a man’s world,” Thompson told Technical.ly. “Women have just been outfitted in [it].”
