Future spacesuits to act like a second skin

It's a good thing astronauts tend to be so fit and trim. In the future, they may have to don skintight spacesuits that, while flexible and lightweight, would be rather unforgiving to those of us who could stand to lose a few pounds.

In the vacuum of space, there is not enough air pressure to keep fluids in the body from boiling, so astronauts need to wear pressurised spacesuits to prevent gas from building up in their tissues.

For the last seven years, Newman and colleagues have been working on a different kind of suit (see First people on Mars will be shrink-wrapped). Their "BioSuit" provides pressure by wrapping tight layers of spandex and nylon around the body – an idea first proposed by Paul Webb in the 1960s (see the 1968 New Scientist article A porous leotard for space).