How NASA designed the Artemis II space suits for a worst-case scenario

For its return to the moon, NASA designed a suit that can keep astronauts alive for six days should the Orion spaceship fail.

[Photos: Joel Kowsky/NASA, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

“Houston, we have a problem.”

The misquoted phrase is so ingrained in popular culture that it has become the standard comeback to any unexpected mishap. It’s also the last phrase NASA’s Artemis II mission control wants to hear in the coming days because, unlike those of us on Earthly terrain, an astronaut midway to the moon won’t be muttering it after they accidentally burn their toast.

A four-person crew took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1 for NASA’s first lunar flyby since Apollo 17 in 1972. The organization has done everything it can to ensure the safety of the astronauts, knowing that any harm to the courageous humans could set its lunar program back many years, or cancel it altogether.

One part of its insurance policy is a new space suit that’s designed to sustain the Artemis II crew for six days—enough time to go to the moon and back—in case there’s a catastrophic event in their Orion spacecraft.

A lifeboat in a space suit

When Jack Swigert, command module pilot of Apollo 13, radioed “Houston, we’ve had a problem here” on April 13, 1970, an oxygen tank explosion had just severely damaged the spacecraft just 56 hours into its journey to the moon. The astronauts on board couldn’t simply pull a U-turn 200,000 miles away from Earth.

And since they didn’t have enough oxygen, Swigert, along with commander Jim Lovell and lunar module pilot Fred Haise, abandoned their crippled spaceship and hunkered down inside the lunar lander, using it as a makeshift lifeboat for the harrowing trip home.

But the Artemis II mission—a roughly 10-day loop around the moon—flies without a lunar lander. If the Orion capsule’s hull breaches for any reason and vents its breathable air into the void, the crew has nowhere else to go. NASA’s answer was to build a lifeboat of sorts directly into their suits.

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