The American site Slash Gear conducted a small survey to try to determine how much a combination ofastronaut
from NASA. After crossing sources made up of various reports and older articles, the answer appeared to them: it is very expensive (what a surprise) but we cannot know precisely.
The survey nevertheless provides new keys to better understand and apprehend what it means to develop a technology that appears to be as “simple” as a suit intended for space.
The Race for the Millions
The Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) suit has been fitted to American astronauts since 1981 and is still used today on board the International Space Station even though it was designed to last only 15 years. A true object of fantasies, this emblematic suit of modern space exploration obsesses space enthusiasts both for its complexity and for the money that such a technological device costs, which is much more than a protective layer for astronauts.
Based on various reports published over the past decades, the site Slash Gear was able to roughly estimate the price of a suit. The company ILC Dover, one of the manufacturers of parts for the EMU, had published a report in 1994, consulted by Slash Gear, bringing in a manufacturing price of $2 million per suit not counting the additional costs that come after (maintenance, updates). Of course, this price only concerns the branch of ILC and, NASA working with many service providers and manufacturers, this price therefore grows very quickly.
Business Insider explained in an article last year that in 1974, at the height of space exploration, a suit of this style cost between 15 and 22 million dollars to produce which, amusingly, would bring a cost today of $150 million including inflation after a calculation of Slash Gear.
A more complex and expensive future
150 million dollars, these are peanuts if we are to believe the conclusions Slash Gear regarding NASA’s development of next-generation suits. Called the Exploration Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU), these new suits have been in development for nearly 15 years by NASA and are expected to be far more sophisticated and efficient than the suits currently in use, with one main purpose: to be used on the Moon.
According to a report by the General Inspectorate of the American agency published in 2021, since 2008 NASA has already spent some 420 million dollars in the development of these ultra complex suits. The goal was to have two functional xEMUs for 2024, the year in which humans should set foot on the Moon (although various reports point to significant delays) with the Artemis program. But the report instead estimates their development to be completed in April 2025, bringing their cost to $1 billion for two suits and therefore $500 million per unit if we take into account research, development, assembly and costs. audit.
Source: Slash Gear
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