What the Well Dressed Astronaut Will Wear

Occasionally astronauts have to leave their spaceships, so researchers at Northeastern University and Rutgers University propose that protect the astronauts by including layers of bio-nano robots in their spacesuits. The outer layer of bio-nano robots would respond to damages to the spacesuit, for example to seal up punctures. An inner layer of bio-nano robots could respond if the astronaut was in trouble, for example by providing drugs in a medical emergency.

The term bio-nano robots come from the use of biological molecules to provide portions of the robots mechanism. For example, proteins have mechanisms to travel within a body that enable it them to work as a motor for a nano robot. These proteins could be connected to carbon nanotubes that link parts of the nano robot together. When you think about it, this idea is just like harnessing a horse to a cart as the nano robots hitch a ride on the proteins. There’s a lot of development work to be done, but it will be interesting to see how these self-healing suits turn out.