NASA to buy spacesuits from commercial market
Capitalism in space: NASA last week announced that it is looking for private companies to build spacesuits and other spacewalk equipment that the agency can buy.
In a request for information (RFI) published April 14, NASA revealed that it is looking for feedback from the space sector on its newly updated strategy to work with commercial partners in space. In this new strategy, NASA is looking to collaborate more with commercial partners in developing, building and maintaining technology for spacewalks, or extravehicular activities (EVAs), including spacesuits, the agency said in a statement.
Under this new strategy, the agency will be “shifting acquisition of the exploration extravehicular activity (xEVA) system to a model in which NASA will purchase spacesuit services from commercial partners rather than building them in-house with traditional government contracts,” the statement reads.
This request, issued only days prior to the award of the lunar lander contract to SpaceX, continues the shift at NASA from running things like the Soviet Union, where everything is designed, built, and owned by the government, to the traditional American model of capitalism and free enterprise, where the governement is merely the customer that gets what it needs from the private sector.
The timing also suggests that NASA’s management wants to firm up this shift prior to the arrival of big government guy, former senator and Democrat Bill Nelson, who is undergoing his confirmation hearing today as NASA administrator.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Capitalism in space: NASA last week announced that it is looking for private companies to build spacesuits and other spacewalk equipment that the agency can buy.
In a request for information (RFI) published April 14, NASA revealed that it is looking for feedback from the space sector on its newly updated strategy to work with commercial partners in space. In this new strategy, NASA is looking to collaborate more with commercial partners in developing, building and maintaining technology for spacewalks, or extravehicular activities (EVAs), including spacesuits, the agency said in a statement.
Under this new strategy, the agency will be “shifting acquisition of the exploration extravehicular activity (xEVA) system to a model in which NASA will purchase spacesuit services from commercial partners rather than building them in-house with traditional government contracts,” the statement reads.
This request, issued only days prior to the award of the lunar lander contract to SpaceX, continues the shift at NASA from running things like the Soviet Union, where everything is designed, built, and owned by the government, to the traditional American model of capitalism and free enterprise, where the governement is merely the customer that gets what it needs from the private sector.
The timing also suggests that NASA’s management wants to firm up this shift prior to the arrival of big government guy, former senator and Democrat Bill Nelson, who is undergoing his confirmation hearing today as NASA administrator.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I wonder what planet we would be landing today on if we did this in 1980
Wow. My mind boggles. You definitely called this one Mr Zimmerman. Well done and please keep up your predictions and analyses.
What if they off shore it and put the last American seamstresses out of work? That cool with you? Pure villainy. West Alabama is filled with the wrecks of mills Reagan ghosted.
Will NASA be producing standards that multiple companies can produce products for? For instance, a standard helmet mount so that multiple companies could provide helmets that are guaranteed to work with whatever lower suit is produced. Same for gloves, boots, torso, and a myriad of other components that go into a spacesuit. I can envision how custom components could be produced to meet certain criteria based on the specific requirements of a mission. This could do a lot to spur innovation across smaller companies.
My thought is that with this development, someone with enough money and some personal risk tolerance could buy the services of a starship (and associated fueling infrastructure), an EVA suit and then head to the moon to beat, by several years, the first set of Artemis astronauts touch down in 2029 (given NASA’s risk intolerance).
I guess now that Musk has all the NASA contracts related to Lunar exploration, he wouldn’t want to tick off his customer by upstaging them.
Jeff Wright,
You asked: “What if they off shore it and put the last American seamstresses out of work?”
Why do you think the last American seamstresses are so inefficient or ineffective that they can’t compete? And if they are, why do we want to support their inefficiency or ineffectiveness? Why can’t they figure out how to be more competitive? Isn’t the waste of resources through such poor allocation the real villainy?
Why was western Alabama unable or unwilling to improve their competitiveness? Indeed, during the Carter and Reagan administrations, the Democrats were advocating that America offshore work so that foreign markets would then have money with which to purchase American products. So, that makes the Democrats, not Reagan, the villains of west Alabama.
mpthompson – Ref standards. The US military has a couple of centuries’ experience along this line. – write the specification, have a competition, choose the winner. So I think NASA will follow in kind. BTW, you can add the Space Force into the mix. There’s no reason that NASA and the SF can’t produce joint specifications when appropriate. Don’t forget, it’s cheaper to buy in bulk (As I learned from my father telling me about the Gilbreths, pioneers of the “Scientific Management School” who married one another and had a large family)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheaper_by_the_Dozen
And as an old soldier, I love the idea that “boots on the ground” is going to take on a whole new meaning. for the US Army. Just don’t let them issue you any red shirts, guys.
To Edward-the search for low wages is what caused ruin porn. It made China strong and killed our middle class. What you call protectionism I call patriotism. Bash Carter all you like-but back then, we were more self reliant-and not one person in China had a car.
Ayn Rand-who also died on public assistance-even talked about ‘post birth abortion.’ I want nothing to do with that kind of villany. She is wrong for the same reason Erlich was wrong. She saw her fellow man as a problem-not as a resource. Greens hate folks for having anything nice. Corporate profit seekers wrecked a pro-engineer Aeropace sector. The suits caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster by telling roughnecks how to do their jobs–and environmentals don’t even want them to have their jobs. As a sane centrist- I say a pox be upon both their houses.
Jeff Wright,
You wrote: “To Edward-the search for low wages is what caused ruin porn.”
The search was not for lower wages but for lower overall costs. Why does it cost so much to do business in Alabama? Why can’t Alabama be competitive? Why do I keep asking questions that you aren’t going to bother to answer?
“What you call protectionism”
What did I call protectionism? Indeed, my questions support the opposite of protectionism. Patriotism would be to find the better efficiencies so that the lower prices would bring in business, to show the world that we are competitive, too. Do you not understand basic economics or did you fail to comprehend my comment? (Why do I keep asking questions? Apparently, I just can’t help myself.) I suspect the latter, because not only did you not answer a single one of my questions, you insisted that I said some things that I did not.
I didn’t bash Carter, but you seemed eager to “bash,” as you think of it, Reagan. Are you one of those who is proud to be a hypocrite? It is interesting, however, that you think that a successful rest of the world would be a bad thing. To you, the suggestion of such a world is considered “bashing,” even though it was a liberal global strategy.
We were more self reliant, back then, because we hadn’t yet done as the Democrats wanted. Now that we are in the mess you don’t like, you aren’t even willing to accept that it was the Democrats who did it to us in order to support union jobs by selling their products overseas.
You are full of contradictions, Jeff. You seem to know little about the topic. It isn’t the only topic that you seem to know little about. Your second paragraph is a bit eclectic, in an unclear way. I am a bit confused how you consider the Social (In)Security and Medicare that a person earns to be public assistance, it is money that government owes to us. If that is your criterion, then pretty much everyone ends up on what you consider to be public assistance.