Real-Life Iron Man Suit Could Allow Space Diving Without a Parachute!
The movie and comics of Iron Man have clearly inspired some to take the next step in crazy, developing a suit similar to that of Iron Man that will allow astronauts to jump to earth without a parachute, using rocket boots to soften their landing instead…. cool! The idea is to use augmented reality goggles, power gloves, movement gyros, rockets and a commercial space suit combined to create the system and I can’t help but think that the Felix Baumgartner jump helped research this one, given that the guy practically jumped from space just last year.
Solar System Express, a Baltimore based space firm and Juxtopia, a biomedical design firm, have been working together to combine their space tech and biomedical knowledge with the hope of releasing a production model of the suit by 2016. The yellow suit you can see in the image above is made from a commercial space suit, it’s to be fitted with “rocket boots” and tested by July 2016.
These tests will be similar to that of the Baumgartner jump, but will later integrate everything from wing suit tech, to small aerospike engines to allow proper propulsion and maneuvering, while the AR glasses will feed information about speed, altitude, radar and oxygen levels.
It’s obviously completely freaking mental, but it’s still incredibly cool and while this may sound like the reserve of extreme thrill seekers it’s also another step in providing an emergency escape system for astronauts.
Image courtesy of DailyMail
I wonder if they find somebody nuts enough for the first test jump.