FLAGSUIT & THE ASTRONAUT GLOVE CHALLENGE
 

In the vacuum of space an astronaut’s glove swells up like a balloon, becoming stiff and inflexible. This design challenge has confounded the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) since the dawn of the space age. The glove problem was considered in a NASA Technical Memorandum on astronauts' recommendations to improve extravehicular systems (download here).

It is something you have to feel to understand. When Flagsuit, LLC founder Peter Homer first put his hand inside NASA's Phase VI astronaut glove, "It wasn't like I thought it would be. The glove is rigid when it is pressurized. It was surprising to me because intellectually four psi (pounds per square inch) doesn’t seem like that much. I was surprised at how much a rigid shell it became.” (Read NASA's interview with Peter to learn just how tricky the problem is.)

To combat the problem, astronauts use low-pressure space suits filled with pure oxygen. But—as an article in The Space Review concluded—Apollo’s moon walkers stressed the need for one new piece of equipment above all else:

"Better gloves. Better gloves. Better gloves.”

It's such a vexing problem that Congress established a $1,000,000 prize for anyone who could build at better glove than NASA's.

NASA Centennial Challenge Winner

Peter Homer is the first winner of a centennial challenge cash prize established by Congress to spur private innovation to solve intractable NASA problems. Since winning the competition, he has received national attention and has participated in space expos in Los Angeles and at the Kennedy Space Center.

That he invented his solution working alone on his dining room table, with only $500 of material and an antique sewing machine, is the stuff legends (or at least Hollywood movies) are made of.

Innovation is not about big budgets and lots of complicated math. It's a way of knowing and doing things in creative, practical ways that make sense. Just like the glove itself, innovation has a "feel." It's the feel of scientific exploration; iT's a culture of exploring what you don't know through trial and error.

Flagsuit, LLC

Peter Homer founded Flagsuit, LLC in 2007 to commercialize technology developed for his winning entry in the 2007 NASA Astronaut Glove Challenge.

Based in coastal Maine, the company is focused on streamlining the production of "Made to Fit" elements for suborbital and future planetary space suits.

PETER K. HOMER

(Flagsuit LLC, B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, M.S. Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Stanford University)

Peter is an award-winning inventor with over ten patents and more than ten years' experience designing aerospace hardware and systems for Grumman Aerospace, General Electric Astro Space, and Lockheed-Martin Commercial Space Systems. In May 2007 he won NASA’s $200,000 Astronaut Glove Challenge for a design that outperforms the current Space Station glove.