NASA's current fleet of spacesuits was built in 1974, and each was reported to cost between $15 million and $22 million. Today, that would be about $150 million. Having not built any new mission-ready extravehicular suits since then, NASA is running out of spacesuits. In fact, NASA is down to just four flight-ready EVA suits. Since 2009, NASA has invested more than $200 million in spacesuit development, recently unveiling the xEMU prototype for its Artemis program, which plans to take humans back to the surface of the moon by 2024, with a view to eventually go to Mars. With that goal fast approaching — and the number of existing spacesuits dwindling — NASA engineers face a new kind of space race. Meanwhile, commercial space company Final Frontier Design is developing its own EVA spacesuits and plans to build new units at much lower costs than NASA. So, why has it taken so long for new spacesuits to be built? And what makes them so expensive?

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Why Spacesuits Are So Expensive | So Expensive