WEBVTT

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Fifty years ago, this past July,

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humans set foot on the moon for first time

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and redefined how we think
about our planet.

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Every time you've ever seen a person
waking on the moon or in space,

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they've been wearing a spacesuit.

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The spacesuit embodies what it means
to be a part of human kind -

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to explore and to achieve
something we thought was impossible.

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But it's not just
a simple piece of clothing.

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The spacesuit is one of the greatest
technical engineering feat ever achieved.

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It does everything a spacecraft does

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to keep a person alive

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except it's wearable.

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But despite how advanced it is,

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the spacesuit is
surprisingly dangerous to wear.

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You'd never know just by looking at it,

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but this suit injures astronauts:

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bruises, sprains, pinched nerves,

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and even lost fingernails.

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23 astronauts have needed 
shoulder surgeries

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to repair injuries
like torn rotator cuffs.

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If something like that happened 
on the surface of the moon or Mars,

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it could destroy the mission.

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Bottom line - improving the spacesuit

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is one of the biggest barriers
to human space exploration

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that no one's talking about.

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I believe one of the most important things
we can do to advance science

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is to send a human to Mars.

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We've learned so much
from our robotic explorers,

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but they're so limited.

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One person on that planet's surface

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could unlock the history
of how our solar system formed,

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or possibly even how life began.

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It'll take billions of dollars
to send people to Mars,

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but you don't just go to Mars to stay
inside your habitat the whole time.

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Astronauts will be exploring 
and wearing the suit

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a lot.

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With current NASA plans,

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if you sent five people
to the surface for 500 days,

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that'd be about 1,000 space walks

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over the course of one mission.

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For perspective,

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we've done just over 400 spacewalks

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in the entire history
of human space flight.

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That's an insane jump in capability.

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If we're going to pull this off -
and I believe that we will -

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we need to radically
redefine the spacesuit.

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I became interested in space exploration

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in the third grade

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when my teacher spent the day
telling us about astronauts.

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It was the first time I really understood
that people could go there.

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Since that time, human space flight
has been the driving passion of my life.

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But I only began to understand

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how hard it is for astronauts
to work inside their spacesuits

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when I went to graduate school.

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The spacesuit is pressurized with oxygen
to allow people to breathe,

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but that pressure
makes it stiff and rigid.

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Think about trying
to make a balloon animal.

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When you bend the balloon,

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It wants to spring back
to its original position.

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Engineers have tried to solve this problem

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by designing the suit's joints
with pleats and bearings,

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but it still forces people
to move in awkward and unnatural ways.

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To move in the suit,

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first you have to move your body
until it makes contact with the suit.

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Only then does the suit
itself start to move.

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You can't just reach up
and touch your head,

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like this;

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instead, astronauts
have to roll out their shoulder

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and then bend their elbow
to touch their helmet.

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That's hard enough to remember
how to do here on Earth,

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let alone when you're
outside your spacecraft,

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travelling at over 17,000 miles per hour.

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Fit is another major issue.

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In March 2019,

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NASA had to cancel
the first all-female spacewalk

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because the suits available
didn't fit the crew members,

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and it would have taken too much time

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to put together a different suit,
on orbit, that was the right size.

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So pressure plus fit
is why astronauts get beat up

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every time they work inside the suit.

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And that's why I've dedicated my career
to designing a better spacesuit.

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The first step is to understand
how people move while wearing the suit.

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You can't just see inside

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to understand how and why
astronauts are getting injured.

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So, together with
my students at CU Boulder,

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we're developing wearable sensors

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to go inside

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to measure how people move
and interact with the suit.

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With this data,

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we hope to be able to predict

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whether or not the suit
will be comfortable

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or cause injuries

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after someone wears it
a couple hundred times.

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When humans take their first steps
onto the surface of Mars,

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their boots will make the first impact.

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Astronauts haven't needed
to walk in their spacesuits

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since Apollo astronauts
left the moon in 1972.

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Because the boot is also pressurized,
the foot isn't secured inside of it.

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It'd be like wearing
a pair of hiking shoes

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that are several sizes too large for you.

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Every time you take a step,

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the heel lifts out of the back,

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causing blisters, wasted energy
and awkward movement.

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The thing is,

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if you get a blister on a hike,
you just have a bad hike.

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If you get a blister
on the surface of Mars,

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it's hard to do your job.

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And it can be even more painful than that.

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One astronaut had a boot issue -

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they said it felt
like a knife's edge of pain.

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To design a better spacesuit boot,

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my student Aubie has built
a four-dimensional motion capture system

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that measures the shape
of the foot while walking.

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With this data,

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we plan to redesign
how the foot fits inside the boot

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to ensure our astronauts
can explore further and further.

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But if we really want to revolutionize
spacesuits for Mars,

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we have to protect the body

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in a fundamentally
different way than we do now.

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I believe the solution
for a Martian spacesuit

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relies on a skin-tight elastic concept,

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first proposed in the 1960s
by Dr. Paul Webb.

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It uses a concept called
mechanical counterpressure,

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which means that rather than using
an inflated garment

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to apply pressure to the skin,

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the suit itself squeezes the body.

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Unfortunately, these suits
have never really gained traction,

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because it's so difficult

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to create pressure
over the complex shapes of the body,

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like the armpit.

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When I was a graduate student,
my adviser sent me to Italy

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to work with a company, Dainese,
that designs motorcycle racing suits.

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David told me,

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"These people are the best designers
you will ever meet."

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I want you to use your engineering skills
with their design skills

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and design some mechanical
counterpressure spacesuit prototypes."

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So, off to Italy I went.

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That summer was one of the most
creative and inspiring experiences

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I have had as an engineer.

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Every day, Stefano and I would whip up
some new spacesuit prototype,

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test it and then change the design,

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always getting closer to
a mechanical counterpressure spacesuit,

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but we're still a long ways away
from something that's spaceflight ready.

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Since that time, I've continued to work
with this team of friends from MIT,

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the University of Minnesota,

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the Royal Melbourne Institute
of Technology in Australia,

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David Clark company and NASA

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to continue pushing
on these design issues.

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In my lab now,

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we're challenging how we think about using
mechanical counterpressure in spacesuits.

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Instead of choosing
either mechanical counterpressure

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or gas pressure,

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why can't we choose both?

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If we cut the design problem in half

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and apply, say, 50% of the pressure
with a tight elastic suit layer

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and the other 50% with a traditional
gas pressurized suit like we use now,

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we'd be able to protect our astronauts
with a suit that's less stiff and rigid

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but also safer through redundancy.

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And a suit like that

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would enable a human mission to Mars.

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I believe I will be lucky enough

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to see people walking
on the surface of Mars before I die.

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But to make a mission
of that magnitude worthwhile,

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we have to ensure
our astronauts stay safe.

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And we have to ensure
they're able to explore and do science

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day after day after day.

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It's time to imagine a new design
for our iconic spacesuit.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)