NASA Turns To Prada Luxury Engineering To Keep Future Moon Astronauts Cool

NASA is going all in with donning future astronauts in Italian high fashion, proving that even a 240,000-mile commute is no excuse to skimp on style. Through an ongoing partnership with aerospace firm Axiom Space, luxury fashion house Prada has moved not just from designing the outer shell of the next-generation lunar spacesuit, but also to tailoring its most intimate component.

Axiom recently showed off the Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment (LCVG), basically high-tech figure-hugging underoos for astronauts in the Artemis IV mission. So say goodbye to bulky layers resembling a cross between a duvet cover and an oven mitt, because the Class of Artemis 2028 will explore the moon in butt-lifting custom-knitted luxury.

Of course, the technical demands of the lunar runway are slightly more intense than the kind in Milan. Because walking on the moon is surprisingly sweaty work, an astronaut’s body generates massive metabolic heat during, say, an eight-hour spacewalk. To keep bodies cool, the LCVG weaves a complex network of internal tubes across major muscle groups. These tubes circulate chilled water to absorb body heat and carry it off to the backpack life-support system. It also features a fully redundant backup cooling loop because, as any fashionista knows, a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction is a no-no (i.e. significantly more lethal) on the lunar surface.

In constructing the LCVG, Prada utilized proprietary knitting and advanced 3D modeling techniques to solve a genuine material science problem. It helped isolate and source highly specialized fibers that can withstand long-duration missions and repeated wear. Ultimately, the garment manages body temperature, continuously washes fresh oxygen across the astronaut's face, and filters out exhaled carbon dioxide, all while maintaining the structural integrity required for a multi-hour trek across the vacuum of space.