Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF DAVA NEWMAN (DIAGRAM, SUIT) Why are you fascinated with space? I've been fascinated with human spacef light and exploration since I watched the Apollo 11 lunar landing with my family when I was 5 years old. I've sent four experiments into space, and I train astronauts to perform them with the goal to better understand astronaut performance across the spectrum of gravity. I've also been passionate about revolutionary designs for advanced space- suits for planetary exploration, especially for future human exploration of Mars. What is special about this formfitting BioSuit that you designed? The suit is engineered to keep humans alive in space, which means the design must have 30 percent of the atmosphere's pressure. It looks sleek because it's pressurized close to the skin, with tension lines on the suit. It also has to be resilient. If this suit gets punctured, an astronaut can fix it. The exciting thing about the tech- nology is that it has applications here, too: The technology could be used to enhance athletic performance or even help people with cerebral palsy move better. How did you come up with the idea? The idea came to me by trying to envision an entirely new way to design a spacesuit. An artis- tic vision initially crossed my mind (probably while jogging along the Charles River). What if we could engineer a second-skin spacesuit? If it could be done, it would be a breakthrough tech- nology. Then, I jumped into an exhaustive review of the literature. What had others done that could inform our work? It turns out that Dr. Paul Webb had a great idea in the late '60s and early '70s for something he called the Space Activity Suit, a tight-fitting suit. I thought it was a great idea, but perhaps ahead of its time. We are now incorporat- ing active materials that hadn't been invented 40 years ago. I also studied the work of Dr. Arthur Iberall, who proposed novel patterning for a mobile spacesuit. We've taken his geometrical notions and derived them mathematically to produce the patterning of the BioSuit. All of this enabled us to patent our designs and patterning for an advanced planetary spacesuit. To dream up the BioSuit concept was the easy part—to prove the technical feasibility has taken me, and my team, more than a decade. What are the logistics involved with travel- ing to Mars? A human Mars mission will likely be about two years round-trip, and we'll stay on Mars for around 600 days to explore with humans and robots. The reason to explore Mars is to look for past evidence of life, even if it might be billions of years old. Will humans live on Mars someday? Humans will definitely explore Mars. A grand vision for human habitation on Mars might include initial missions with four to six people, and then larger numbers of Mars astronauts—10 to 100 inhabitants when we can successfully make our own fuel [on Mars, especially for return f lights to Earth]. The fuel will likely be methane, and we have the technology to make this on Mars given the planet's CO 2 atmosphere. My grand vision for habitation on Mars includes an international crew all working together…. It would be an incred- ible celebration of the human spirit of exploration if we could accomplish it cooperatively and glob- ally—for all humankind to enjoy. "Building the Future Spacesuit," May 15 at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge; cfa.harvard.edu BC " e BioSuit technology has applications here, too. It could be used to enhance athletic performance or even help people with cerebral palsy." DAVA NEWMAN Dava Newman's design is meant to withstand the rigors of life on Mars. BELOW: A diagram shows the protective layers of the BioSuit. 54 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM THOUGHT LEADER continued from page 52 052-054_BC_SP_ThoughtLeader_LteSpr14_REV.indd 54 4/4/14 10:52 AM