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[Music]

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a new era of exploration is beginning

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nasa is building on its experience in

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low earth orbit and preparing to go

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farther setting up a base camp in orbit

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around the moon known as the gateway

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exploring the surface of the moon like

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never before and preparing to one day go

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to mars

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to accomplish all this nasa will need a

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new space suit for its astronauts one

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that's more flexible versatile and

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durable than any made before

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engineers are now hard at work designing

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building and testing the new suit making

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sure it's up to the task for future

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[Music]

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some of the greatest moments in

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exploration have taken place with a

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human in a spacesuit whether it was a

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first journey outside the spacecraft or

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traversing mountainous moonscapes

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the spacesuit made it possible

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the act of sending a suited human

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outside the spacecraft is called eva

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what is an eva eva is an acronym that

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stands for extravehicular activity which

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is what most people know is a spacewalk

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it's whenever we take astronauts and we

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let them go outside to do useful work in

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the vacuum of space

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the spacesuits currently in use for nasa

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evas were designed in the 1970s for

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space shuttle missions

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they have been upgraded over the years

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for work on the international space

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station and have served nasa well

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in the past 20 years there are a handful

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of types of spacewalks that we've done

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we've done planned spacewalks for

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maintenance as hardware breaks we can do

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contingency spacewalks

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as technology improves we can upgrade

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hardware or like with the hubble space

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telescope we're actually repairing very

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sensitive scientific experiments in

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order to enable science

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those ebas took place in microgravity

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where astronauts float and need to use

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their hands to move from place to place

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but moonwalkers working in one-sixth

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earth's gravity will need spacesuits

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that let them use their hands and feet

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walking to destinations and bending and

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reaching as they explore

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for this new type of work nasa has been

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testing prototype planetary suits

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culminating in a new suit design the

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xemu

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the cmu is exploration extravehicular

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activity mobility unit so it's an

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exploration spacesuit so it's a

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spacesuit that you're going to use as we

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move forward in on gateway missions and

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on the lunar missions with artemis and

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then we're using all that to test the

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suits you would want to use to go to

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mars in so eventually you're going to

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have to be very independent and very

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confident in your hardware when you go

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and do a mission that far away

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one of the most obvious changes in the

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new space suit is the way astronauts get

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in and out of it donning the current

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suit is a multi-step process of

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wriggling into the upper torso and then

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getting help attaching a pair of space

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pants the new generation spacesuit

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features a hatchback where astronauts

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simply slide in and out of the one-piece

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another big feature of the suit is the

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way the astronauts are able to move

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while wearing it

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apollo astronauts learned they had to

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hop to get around on the moon

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the suit design sometimes made it

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[Music]

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okay

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not quite

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engineers learned valuable lessons from

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those apollo suits the improved design

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for the next generation spacesuit will

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allow astronauts to walk on the moon not

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hop

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additionally astronauts will experience

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an improved range of motion

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the new suits the planetary walking

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suits we're working now we really hope

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to provide improved mobility and comfort

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along with reduced injury potential and

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really like i said provide the best tool

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to the crew member that we can provide

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then we want to be able to provide them

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the ability to kneel down and pick up a

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rock like they're going to do in their

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geology science that they're working on

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we want this to be a very reliable and

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durable suit so they can use it day

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after day in a dusty environment and not

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have to do a lot of maintenance with it

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while they're needing to do their

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mission so there's a lot of those kinds

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of aspects that go into improving the

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suit that we're going to provide for the

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lunar missions

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improved mobility is not the only

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feature engineers have been working on

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the astronauts will also be carrying a

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special backpack known as the pliss

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the plus is the portable life support

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system it's the backpack on the

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spacesuit and it has all of the

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interesting parts to keep the crew

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member alive while they're on their

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spacewalk

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so it has oxygen

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stored as pressurized gas for breathing

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pressure regulators that regulate the

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oxygen pressure inside the spacesuit and

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then a ventilation loop and a water loop

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that we call the thermal loop that

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provide trace contaminant and carbon

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dioxide removal from the breathing

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environment and also cooling for the

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crew member and the suit on board

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avionics and electronic systems

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while the pliss has been on previous

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spacesuits

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this improved version will offer new

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technology greater control of its

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systems for the astronaut and longer

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life for each eva

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allowing more exploration the plus labs

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are awesome super fun places and we

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physically assemble the parts to build

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the life support system and then we test

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it it's our opportunity to find things

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and fix things before we get it on orbit

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we love what we do we really want to see

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the system fly and be useful and help a

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person explore the moon in a more

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capable manner than they were able to do

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during apollo

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so it's a great job

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so i want you to perform some isolated

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joint movement to understand how the

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testing for the new spacesuit continues

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underwater in the neutral buoyancy lab

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here the weightless environment of space

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can be simulated to put the suit through

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its paces

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so being able to test the suit in the

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pool in microgravity environments allows

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us to

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iterate on our design and make it better

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and get feedback from astronauts and

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from other instructors and trainers

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could you reach all the way across and

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do the cross switches with your opposite

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arm oh yeah it's really easy to get all

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the switches with my opposite arm

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come on i know i guess it's going to get

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lower and flatter

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yeah hold on

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very good so if this could happen in

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real life

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this is a spectacular translation

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rex and i are very lucky it is it is

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like a you know brand new spacecraft

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even even has the new smell and

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[Music]

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spacesuits are also tested in the active

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response gravity offload system or argos

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yes so the argos electronically is able

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to

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gravity it is that we're practicing that

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day whether that's microgravity lunar

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gravity or martian gravity the other

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nice thing about argos is you're able to

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get the instructors and the engineers

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right next to the astronauts as they're

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working helping the astronaut figure out

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a problem as they work through the

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development of that test for the suit or

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for a piece of hardware and get that

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real-time feedback

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spacesuit hardware is not the only thing

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being tested on earth

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nasa is looking at human performance as

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an important factor in designing evas

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and space suits

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so related to a spacesuit a lot of times

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people think about the actual

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engineering the hardware the different

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pieces but i want to look at the eva

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scenario from the human really inside

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the suit make sure that

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their performance both physically

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cognitively is going well so we want to

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look at things like physical exertion

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cognitive workload injury risk and

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really just trying to make sure that

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they're not impaired by the eva system

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any more than they have to be the nasa

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team uses virtual reality technology

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motion capture and other tools to study

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what it takes for a human to conduct an

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eva and what we're able to do is bring

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actual no kidding data to the table that

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really removes the opinions

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that's probably our primary benefit for

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how we kind of enhance the eba community

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is we take a look at this not from a

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hardware not from an operations

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standpoint first we look first at the

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human and then kind of say what do they

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need to be able to do to be ready for

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the job

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all the work on the spacesuit here on

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earth is building up to the ultimate

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test

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to fly it in space

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so we're actually building a flight unit

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of that xemu and we're going to launch

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it to the international space station

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and we will do an eva with a current

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spacesuit and emu that we use today and

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the xcmu with it we'll go out in pairs

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and we'll have the astronauts working

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together one in the old suit and one in

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the new suit and we'll test its

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functionality in a microgravity or a low

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gravity environment out in the vacuum of

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space that will help us test a lot of

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its systems

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the eva on the space station will set

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the stage for the future when the suit

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will need to perform a variety of

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missions beyond low earth orbit

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yeah so a great example is uh nasa's

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gateway so even though it is in lunar

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orbit it's still a microgravity platform

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so astronauts would still be floating in

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space and so we can use a lot of the

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lessons we learned from the

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international space station to do

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spacewalks on the gateway it's actually

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really advantageous to use one spacesuit

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both at gateway and on the lunar surface

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so the exploration space you can do both

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of those things

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[Music]

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for evas on the moon the new spacesuit

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will give astronauts unprecedented

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abilities as they explore the lunar

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surface

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really this is the first time we're

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trying to bring a

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suit that's optimized for human

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performance and optimize for lunar

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exploration so that you can actually

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bend down interact with the ground so

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that you're going to have the visibility

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that you need the mobility that you need

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to accomplish these tasks

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this new suit will allow us the

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flexibility to really do exploration get

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down on the surface and send geologists

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to the surface and really let them act

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like geologists in a spacesuit this is

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the first time in history that a suit

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like that will have been created and

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it's really exciting to be part of that

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to do what nasa was meant to do and that

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is to do exploration and this suit will

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really help enable the agency go do

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exploration

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well everyone in my generation wasn't

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alive the first time we went to the moon

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and we want to do it again and we want

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to do it better we want to go do more

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science we want to stay longer we want

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to get more out of it and we have the

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technology to do it now so

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we're really excited about it

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with its new technology

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new design

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greater mobility and greater versatility

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in how it can be used

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nasa's new space walking suit is truly

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tailored for the next generation of