NASA’s Looking for Better Gloves

NASA’s next Centennial Challenge is set to begin on May 2-3, 2007. This time, the agency is looking for suggestions from the public on how they can make better gloves for astronauts. The competition will award $200,000 to the team that can design and manufacture the best glove that meets a set of minimum criteria. The contest will take place at the New England Air Museum at Bradley International Airport, Windsor Locks, Connecticut and it’s free for the public to attend.

To meet the minimum requirements, a glove must be large enough to fit 95% of male wrists, incorporate hardware that matches NASA space suit connection, provide a range of motion for all the digits, and withstand high pressure and suffer no damage.

Each glove will be pressurized to 4.3 psid, and then instruments will measure how easily it moves through all the different movements that an astronaut will need to use. Each glove will receive points for wrist flexion, wrist extension, wrist abduction, wrist adduction, and flexion of each finger and thumb individually and together. The gloves will then be pressurized up to see how well they can handle higher pressures.

The team that beats NASA’s current glove design by the highest margin will win the prize.

Original Source: NASA News Release