DIY Space Suit

DIY Space Suit

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Cameron Smith is building a space suit in his apartment. He’s not an astronaut. He’s not even an engineer. Cameron Smith is an archaeologist—on faculty in the anthropology department at Portland State University in Oregon. But Cameron is an explorer by nature. He’s been diving in Puget Sound, survived arctic winters in Iceland and Alaska and summited Oregon’s Mount Hood more times than he can count. Now he wants to take on outer space. And since Cameron doesn’t have an entire space program behind him, that means doing it on the cheap. His homemade space suite costs $2,000. A standard issue suit from NASA runs about $12 million. The space suit has been a 3 years in the making. Eventually, Cameron will put on the suit and step into a gondola and a balloon (also homemade) will take him up 50,000 feet in the air. At that point, he’ll be depending on his own craftiness to keep himself alive. This episode is based off an episode of the public radio program and podcast, Destination DIY.