NASA recently revealed several budgetary and technical issues that eclipse the new spacesuits needed for the much anticipated 2024 moon landing, stating that they won¡¯t be ready until 2025.
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However, Elon Musk, in a tweet, has offered that SpaceX could help make these suits for them.?
Reported first by CNBC,?Musk¡¯s response was to a tweet shared by NASA¡¯s inspector general who had announced that spacesuits needed for a scheduled moon landing in 2024 won¡¯t be ready in time, while also stating that they¡¯re going over budget as the program could cost $1 billion.
Along with this, the inspector general highlighted that due to funding shortfalls, COVID-19 impacts and technical challenges the suit couldn¡¯t get ready until April 2025. The original timeline for these suits was March 2023.?
Musk, however, believes SpaceX has got what it takes to make the suits. He said in a statement, ¡°SpaceX could do it if need be.¡±
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In case you were wondering, SpaceX already has spacesuits, they really don¡¯t. Sure, we saw astronauts don the futuristic space suits while boarding Crew Dragon, but they¡¯re not designed for entering space-space.?
They are designed for just zero-gravity environments like in the Crew Dragon spacecraft which can also experience fluctuations in oxygen levels.?
Today astronauts aboard the ISS are using spacesuits that were designed nearly 45 years ago for the Space Shuttle program. These suits have been partially refurbished and redesigned over the years, but the spacesuits for the 2024 mission were going to be completely new suits.?
According to NASA¡¯s inspector general, the spacesuits today are fabricated by components supplied by 27 different companies. To this Musk responded stating ¡°Seems like too many cooks in the kitchen.¡±
It¡¯ll be interesting to see what the wizards at SpaceX manage to whip up for astronauts to spacewalk in.