If you think changing your underwear day after day gets tedious, try doing it while orbiting the Earth. What better opportunity is there, then, to test a new type of undies that are anti-odor, anti-bacterial and water-absorbent—and that allowed an astronaut on the shuttle Endeavour to wear the same pair for a month straight.
Koichi Wakata, who was in orbit for four-and-a-half months, also tested socks, pants, and shirts that use the same technology. The AP reports:
NASA’s space station program manager, Mike Suffredini, stressed the importance of testing new products, especially those aimed at improving astronauts’ quality of life. There’s no way to wash clothes in space. Station residents simply ditch dirty outfits, along with other garbage, in cargo ships no longer needed that are sent plunging in flames through the atmosphere.
Scientists say they are excited to examine Wakata’s high-tech underthings to see how well they worked. For their sake, let’s hope that the undies are, in fact, as odor-resistant as the manufacturers claim.
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Image: flickr / hans s
July 31st, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Best headline ever.
August 1st, 2009 at 8:10 am
Is that for real? Can they develop odorless undies that we could use on Earth instead in space or anywhere else?
August 1st, 2009 at 11:36 am
Yuck! I hope that’s a joke!
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
[...] seems hygiene in space is all the rage. First, it was the odor-resistant underwear that one astronaut wore for a month. Now, China’s space program has come up with 100 rules [...]
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:21 pm
Is that underwear actually healthy or cancer causing? No seriously. One has to wonder as to the material and ingredients that were used to make these underwear.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:40 pm
How nasty a job is that, examining month old underwear? Is there an undergrad desperate enough to do this job? Or will NASA/Jaxa have to hire Wakata’s Mom??
September 29th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
[...] Discoblog: Bad Breath? Body Odor? Don’t Bother Applying to China’s Space Program Discoblog: Scientists Examine Underwear Astronaut Wore for a Month Discoblog: Today’s Conservation Gimmick: Drink Your Shower [...]