Space Suits: This Year's Look is Skinny

After saying goodbye to the space shuttle program, NASA decided to ditch its big, bulky space suits for something slimmer.

The new exhibit "Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration" at the American Museum of Natural History in New York showcases the next generation of spacesuit made from spandex, nylon and a new patented polymer.

The exhibit opens Saturday. The BioSuit uses elastic cords running though the clothing made of nylon-spandex, elastic or urethane-painted foam to cover the entire body.

The BioSuit also relies on mechanical pressure rather than pressurized gas to protect the astronaut. The patented polymer material in the space suit replaces the compressed air of older suits.

The space-age material is more lightweight and more maneuverable than traditional spacesuits, NASA officials said.

More importantly, a small tear in the suit would only affect one area and wouldn't cause a deadly decompression accident. The helmet would be the only part of the suit that would need to be pressurised.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed the BioSuit. Dava Newman, MIT professor of aeronautics and lead of the project, said the BioSuit was designed for astronauts working in planetary environments like those of the Moon or Mars where walking will be a key requirement.

"We really must design for greater mobility and enhanced human and robotic capability," Newman said. "It's a whole different ballgame when we go to the Moon or Mars, and we have to go back to walking and running or loping."

The MIT team has already made models of the suit that provide up to 30 kilopascals of pressure but they say it will take another 10 years of testing to produce a suit that could be used on actual space missions.