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Looking Good Tester Luca Foresta wears the Aouda.X spacesuit, designed by the Austrian Space Forum.
OewF/Claudia Stix
Last week, spacesuit*designers tested*whether their creations would be flexible enough for a mission to Mars. Teams in two continents suited up to*hop*over zigzag lines, set up tripods, take photos, and*bag pretend*samples.
Any future spacesuits for human explorers on Mars will have to do a lot. They'll need to provide wearers with oxygen, a comfortable temperature and pressure, and shielding from radiation. They may even need to protect people from toxins in Mars' dust. So the Austrian Space Forum, an organization that does public outreach for Austrian space science, worried that such suits could be unwieldy. To test the dexterity of different suits,*the organization set up*simultaneous obstacle courses in Austria, France, North Dakota and Utah on October 8.
The Austrian Space Form says*it has*submitted*results to the journal Astrobiology. Meanwhile, the test itself was a bit of an event, held during the United Nations' World Space WeekAustrian Space Forum]
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