Materialism: A Materials Science Podcast
May 4, 2026 · 38 min · 27 segments
The fanciest suit isn't on the runway, it's in orbit. In this follow-up episode, Taylor and Andrew bring back Kate Winning from Oxford Space Systems to dive into the world of space textiles. From the…
Taylor SparksHostKate WinningGuestAndrew FalkowskiHost
If you wanna go down a, a rabbit hole of interesting engineering, the space suit is gnarly.
I would argue it's gotta be the most sophisticated textile that humans have ever come up with.
It is the space suit, right? And just consider the job requirements that the space suit faces.
Um, we've, we've already talked about with the antennas, the temperature, right? It goes negative 150 to positive 120, so it's boiling water on one end, and it's incredibly cold on the other.
But now you also have to protect against the vacuum of space 'cause there's a living organism inside of that thing.
If you normally expose your body to the vacuum of space, all of your liquids in your body boil, right? Like, you absolutely deconstructUm, but then there's other stuff that I hadn't thought about.
There's micrometeoroids, like, itty-bitty, tiny particles, which you're like, "Well, who cares if it's so small?" But these are traveling at 10 to 20 kilometers per second.
Um, you've got radiation, pretty amazing levels of radiation, both from galactic cosmic rays as well as what are called solar particle events.
Um, ironically, something that I took for granted that wouldn't be that hard to design around is that these have to be mobile.
You have to wear it, and do things, and repair things, and mobility turns out to be one of the huge major challenges of these suits.
Um, you have to maintain pressure as well as an oxygen atmosphere 'cause you're gonna be breathing it.
Um, it's not like you have a, a snorkel or a scuba thing attached to your face.
Really, the better way to think about the space suit is it's not a space suit.
If you wanna go down a, a rabbit hole of interesting engineering, the space suit is gnarly.
I would argue it's gotta be the most sophisticated textile that humans have ever come up with.
It is the space suit, right? And just consider the job requirements that the space suit faces.
Um, we've, we've already talked about with the antennas, the temperature, right? It goes negative 150 to positive 120, so it's boiling water on one end, and it's incredibly cold on the other.
But now you also have to protect against the vacuum of space 'cause there's a living organism inside of that thing.
If you normally expose your body to the vacuum of space, all of your liquids in your body boil, right? Like, you absolutely deconstructUm, but then there's other stuff that I hadn't thought about.
There's micrometeoroids, like, itty-bitty, tiny particles, which you're like, "Well, who cares if it's so small?" But these are traveling at 10 to 20 kilometers per second.
Um, you've got radiation, pretty amazing levels of radiation, both from galactic cosmic rays as well as what are called solar particle events.
Um, ironically, something that I took for granted that wouldn't be that hard to design around is that these have to be mobile.
You have to wear it, and do things, and repair things, and mobility turns out to be one of the huge major challenges of these suits.
Um, you have to maintain pressure as well as an oxygen atmosphere 'cause you're gonna be breathing it.
Um, it's not like you have a, a snorkel or a scuba thing attached to your face.
Really, the better way to think about the space suit is it's not a space suit.
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