Astronaut's Fingernails - NASA's "dirty" little secret

According to an article I just read in Boing Boing, NASA has some what of a dirty secret when it come to astronauts in fact and fingernails in particular. There is no question when we consider astronauts to be a cut above. Their job is dangerous to be sure, but it is the little inconveniences that go without saying that would put most of us off.

One astronaut activity is the dream of everyone that has ever considered going into the last big frontier. That activity is extra-vehicular activity the much vaunted E.V.A. Well if diapers and caths don't put you off, it seems there is another casualty - your finger nails. Yep, extended time in a pressure suit doing eva will make your fingernails fall off. The problem is so bad that many astronauts that know that they will be doing extended EVAs will go so far as to pull their own nails off, just to get the pain and discomfort over and done with. It also appears that suit jocks with large hands suffer the most.

From the boing boing article:

• In several cases, sustained pressure on the fingertips during EVAs caused intense pain and led to the astronauts' nails detaching from their nailbeds, a condition called fingernail delamination.

Those of us who have been paying attention remember that a couple of years ago NASA started a competition for the next generation of Suit Gloves. Now we know why!

Mainer wins NASA glove competition - Again!

NASA has awarded Peter Homer of Southwest Harbor, Maine,  $250,000 for coming up with the winning design concept for more flexible space gloves intended to make it easier for astronauts to perform tasks.

It's the second time Peter Homer has won the so-called "Astronaut Glove Challenge" -- Homer bested the competition in the same contest in 2007.

Homer's design won first place in this year's competition, held yesterday at the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville, Florida. The second place prize of $100,000 went to Ted Southern of Brooklyn, N.Y.NASA officials say the competitors demonstrated their glove designs by trying out a range of tasks in a pressurized chamber. "It is remarkable that two designers working on their own could create gloves that meet the requirements for spaceflight -- a task that normally requires a large team of experts," says NASA engineer Kate Mitchell in a statement.

In order to qualify for a prize, the gloves had to meet all of the basic requirements of NASA's current spacesuit gloves and exceed their flexibility. The gloves also were tested to ensure they would not leak.
Competitors had to develop a complete glove, including the outer, thermal-micrometeoroid-protection layer and the inner, pressure-restraining layer. In the 2007 competition, only the pressure-restraining layer was required.

NASA starts competition for better space suit glove

Six teams are getting ready to compete in the first ever Astronaut Glove Challenge, one of NASA's Centennial Challenges. The goal of the $250,000 competition, which will be held on 2 and 3 May, is to spur innovation to design more flexible spacesuit gloves. Gloves are possibly the most important part of the spacesuit from an astronaut's perspective. In addition to cranking levers and handling power drills, astronauts use their hands – rather than their feet – as their primary mode of "walking" around the International Space Station. Current gloves use two inner layers – a rubbery balloon-like layer surrounded by cloth to help keep the glove's shape – and an outer shield that protects against micrometeoroids and orbital debris and insulates the hands against the extreme temperatures of space. The gloves are pressurised, making it difficult for the astronauts to move their fingers. The labour-intensive spacewalks often leave astronauts' hands bruised and pinched and their fingernails bent backwards. So NASA has gone outside the usual big aerospace companies. Up for grabs is $250,000 in prize money. Each competitor's glove will be graded on how it withstands pressure, how flexible it is and most of all, how comfortable the glove is while doing work. The team with the glove that scores highest in the three tests and also beats the existing spacesuit glove will take home the $200,000 prize.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders