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Space Station Chic: How NASA Is Engineering Better Indoor Clothes for Astronauts

If you really want to be on the cutting edge of fashion, work at NASA.
Karen Nyberg rocking a space ponytail. Image: NASA.

When you hear the phrase "astronaut fashion," the first image that probably jumps to mind is the traditional extravehicular spacesuit. But the crew members aboard the International Space Station (ISS) spend the vast majority of their time within the ship, so it's equally important to ensure that their indoor clothes are functional, comfortable, and germ-free.

Finding this balance is easier said than done—especially given that astronauts are spending increasingly extended periods of time off-Earth. There are no laundry machines on the ISS, and every batch of new clothing has to be delivered by rare resupply missions. In addition, lint from cotton garments can clog up ISS machinery, and body smells can really begin to build up when astronauts are reduced to wearing only a few sets of clothes for months on end.

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That's why Evelyne Orndoff, NASA's resident textile engineer, and her collaborator Darwin Poritz have spent the last three years working on optimizing the indoor astronaut clothing at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Orndoff and Poritz tested numerous different fabrics on a group of 80 ground participants for about a year and a half. The experiments singled out Merino wool shirts and polyester shorts as the most promising garments.

In March 2014, several samples were were sent to the ISS to be tested out by the crew members of Expedition 39 and 40—and Orndoff and Poritz reviewed the results of their microgravity fashion show in a NASA interview released today.

Poritz said that the crew members were asked to use six sets of the lightweight shorts and odor-resistant shirts for 15 exercise periods, as well as answer questionnaires about the durability, comfort, and overall performance of the clothes. By the end of the period, all of the participants still had garments to spare, demonstrating that the shirts and shorts had successfully passed the test of time.

"We ended up with six subjects—three astronauts and three cosmonauts—and my understanding is that our study was, in a way, groundbreaking in the sense that this was the first official involvement of both astronauts and cosmonauts in a human study," explained Poritz.

"Well, we all like clothes—it's universal," joked interviewer Lori Meggs.

But though this initial study was a success, Orndoff and Poritz have their work cut out for them when it comes to optimizing clothing for more ambitious upcoming missions—yes, missions even more ambitious than the most expensive human structure ever built. NASA has made it very clear that it has a manned Martian mission in the works, and that will require even more ingenious solutions to the problem of intravehicular astronaut clothing.

"We're looking at three years of studies on different clothes that we would like to select from for those long duration missions that will take us to Mars," said Orndoff. "Basically, using disposable clothing over a long duration mission is a heavy burden on the logistics and we cannot afford to use the same type of garments [as on missions] where you have a constant resupply of food and clothing and other consumables."

Perhaps future Mars-bound astronauts will be lucky enough to get an ensuite laundry facility with their ship, or maybe Orndoff will find some way to engineer a super-fabric capable of withstanding months of interplanetary travel.

Regardless, the new study reveals just how integral indoor clothes are to astronaut comfort and safety. Spacesuits may play a more iconic role in off-Earth fashion, but at the end of the day, avoiding smelly socks or holey T-shirts is important too.