Prada to design NASA's new Moon suit (bbc.com)

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67022619

2 points by isaacfrond 3 days ago | flag | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37788706

    "Prada has considerable experience with various types of composite fabrics and may actually be able to make some real technical contributions to the outer layers of the new space suit," according to Professor Jeffrey Hoffman, who flew five Nasa missions and has carried out four spacewalks.

    ... he thought Prada was up to the challenge due to their design experience.

    That experience has been built not only on the catwalks of Milan but also through Prada's involvement in the America's Cup sailing competition.

Joining new fabric materials together perhaps isn't as straight forward as many think and actual real world experience working with some of these materials counts as a skill that can be brought to a team effort.

    The Italian fashion house will work to design the suits alongside another private company, Axiom Space.

    In a press release, Axiom said Prada would bring expertise with materials and manufacturing to the project.

I mean if we're not going to do anything useful, might as well appeal to the vacuum headed.

If they have the materials science and soft textile engineering skills that the maker of Playtex bras had[1], what's to criticize?

1 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/neil-armstrongs-space...

Yes, but Prada isn't a materials company masquerading as a underwear maker.

> Coach, Heron Preston and Balenciaga have recently collaborated with NASA on space collections, now Prada

NASA is becoming like a Nascar or F1 TV show at this point (or even america cup sailing competition that was also sponsored by Prada!), this whole article screams marketing jargons like I’m reading Apple’s “all new” smartwatch branded with Nike, sad.