ARS Technica by Eric Berger - Apr 26, 2017
The space agency seems to be running out of usable suits for space station operations.
When NASA began developing a rocket and spacecraft to return humans to the Moon a decade ago as part of the Constellation Program, the space agency started to think about the kinds of spacesuits astronauts would need in deep space and on the lunar surface. After this consideration, NASA awarded a $148 million contract to Oceaneering International, Inc. in 2009 to develop and produce such a spacesuit.
However, President Obama canceled the Constellation program just a year later, in early 2010. Later that year, senior officials at the Johnson Space Center recommended canceling the Constellation spacesuit contract because the agency had its own engineers working on a new spacesuit and, well, NASA no longer had a clear need for deep-space spacesuits. However, the Houston officials were overruled by agency leaders at NASA's headquarters in Washington, DC.
A new report released Wednesday by NASA Inspector General Paul Martin sharply criticizes this decision. "The continuation of this contract did not serve the best interests of the agency’s spacesuit technology development efforts," the report states. In fact, the report found that NASA essentially squandered $80.6 million on the Oceaneering contract before it was finally ended last year.
NASA leadership told the inspector general that it made the decision to continue the contract because it wanted to keep industry engaged in spacesuit design, but the report dismisses this idea, noting the agency's in-house Advanced Space Suit Project shared several contractors and primary subcontractors with Oceaneering. Moreover, the report found that many of NASA's in-house concepts and designs were ahead of those under the Oceaneering contract. "For example, one study found that the Rapid Cycle Amine swingbed used in the Advanced Space Suit Project design is 'far more advanced' than the (Constellation) concept," the report states.
In a written response to the inspector general, NASA's chief of human spaceflight William Gerstenmaier argued that the report is "overly critical" of the agency's decision and that "we respectfully disagree that the facts presented to the OIG support that portion of the report." This response from Gerstenmaier appears not to have moved Martin, who wrote that "we continue to believe" the contract should have been canceled in 2011.
Not enough suits?
More:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/nasas-spacesuit-program-is-something-of-a-hot-mess/