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<\/figure>The Ross Family: Amy, Jerry, Karen, and Scott. Photo courtesy Amy Ross<\/p><\/div>\n
Among the immense complex of non-descript grey buildings at Houston\u2019s Johnson Space Center is Building 7, which houses NASA\u2019s Crew and Thermal Systems division. The building also doubles as a museum of spacesuits. Behind glass you can see Gus Grissom\u2019s flight suit from the Mercury days; Apollo spacesuits from the moonwalking era; and suits designed for Space Shuttle EVAs (extravehicular activities), which have also carried forward into International Space Station duty. You\u2019ll also find a long wall of photos, showcasing every astronaut who has ever performed an EVA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
One person\u2019s picture appears on the wall more than any other: Jerry Ross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy dad was very enthusiastic about his work,\u201d says Amy. \u201cHe\u2019s always told me that I need to do something I care about, something that challenges me, and something I enjoy.\u201d For Jerry Ross, that passion led to degrees in mechanical engineering from Purdue (BSME \u201970, MSME \u201972), a career in the Air Force, and eventually an astronaut commission with NASA \u2003 where he set records by flying on seven Shuttle missions, and performing nine spacewalks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Amy, having an astronaut for a father wasn\u2019t unusual. \u201cI\u2019ve grown up in Houston since the 2nd grade,\u201d she says, \u201cand lots of people here work for NASA. So when I said, \u2018My father\u2019s an astronaut,\u2019 one of my friends would come back with, \u2018Well my father\u2019s a flight director.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t until I got to Purdue that this really became a distinction for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
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Following in his footsteps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Determining what would be her life\u2019s challenge, Amy chose to follow her father\u2019s footsteps into the space program. \u201cThe space program was meaningful to me,\u201d she says, \u201cbecause it seemed like a really good contribution to the country. That means something to me: not only to contribute something to the country, but to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The most obvious path to fulfilling that challenge? An engineering degree from her father\u2019s alma mater, Purdue University. \u201cI asked my Dad, \u2018How do you work at NASA?\u2019\u201d says Amy. \u201cHe told me that engineering is the degree most people get, and that Purdue has a strong connection to NASA through their co-op program. So it became my mission in life to get into Purdue, become an engineer, and get into the co-op program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cooperative education (or co-op) allows students to alternate semesters between studying at Purdue and working in industry. By the time they graduate, students have both an academic foundation, and years of real-world work experience. NASA co-ops are unique, because students can \u201ctry out\u201d different divisions over multiple semesters. Amy remembers, \u201cI worked in Flight Operations, where I got to work with the robotic arm on the Shuttle. I worked at White Sands Test Facility, where I got to blow stuff up. Eventually, because Dad was so enthusiastic about EVAs, I came to the Engineering Directorate and worked on spacesuits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amy began digging into thermodynamics classes at Purdue, while also interning at Johnson Space Center with legendary spacesuit designer Joe Kosmo, who had worked at NASA since 1961. She continued at Purdue for a master\u2019s degree, with her final project being a mathematical model of a spacesuit\u2019s shoulder joint. After graduation, she began working at NASA full-time.<\/p>\n\n\n
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Good hands<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Her first big responsibility: spacesuit gloves. Historically, astronauts performing spacewalks had limited mobility and dexterity with their hands; insulation and protection were the priorities, with comfort low on the list. \u201cTrying to maintain the performance, while increasing the pressure they can withstand, is a hard job,\u201d says Amy. \u201cThere are a lot of requirements when it comes to mobility, temperature, materials you can use, and durability. And of course, comfort is a part of it. There has to be a balance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her NASA mentor, Joe Kosmo, had spent the last decade developing the parts needed for the next-generation glove — including using computer-aided design for the first time in a spacesuit. Amy\u2019s job was to physically build the first pair, which could then be certified for testing during a real-world mission. Amy needed to know which astronaut would be the first to test them in space, so she could build the gloves to the correct size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when a familiar name came up in the crew rotation: Jerry Ross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOK, no pressure there!\u201d laughed Amy. She and Joe worked to build the first pair of gloves for Amy\u2019s father, spending long hours trying to pass certifications. It made for some interesting dinner table conversations. \u201cMy dad used to joke with me, \u2018Where are my gloves? When are my gloves going to be ready? Are my gloves going to fly?\u2019 It was a little nerve-racking!\u201d (Incidentally, Amy\u2019s mother, Karen, also worked in the space program, as a food technologist. Jerry used to joke that his wife feeds him and his daughter dresses him.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually the test gloves passed certification, and were transferred to Kennedy Space Center in Florida for STS-88, a 1998 Shuttle mission where Jerry Ross performed three spacewalks. Amy retells the story: \u201cFor the first EVA, he was supposed to wear the new gloves, and then go back to the old gloves on the second EVA for comparison. But he liked them so much, he never wore the old ones again; he wore the new gloves for all three of his EVAs. He even took a moment to comment during the spacewalk about how he appreciated all the work that went into the gloves, because they\u2019re really good. I was watching it on TV, and jumped out of my chair screaming and cheering\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These new gloves (officially called Phase VI gloves) were so good, that every spacesuit since 1998 has featured them — including the suits now in service on the International Space Station. \u201cEveryone on our team knew what was at stake,\u201d says Amy, \u201cand it\u2019s so cool that we were able to take this from an idea, to successfully implementing them. And the fact that they\u2019re still being used, even 20 years later, is really impressive and exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amy\u2019s biggest challenge moving forward may be the uncertainty of human space exploration: beyond the International Space Station, nobody knows what the next step will be. \u201cWe\u2019re always looking ahead to see what NASA\u2019s future missions *might* be,\u201d says Amy. \u201cRight now, all of our spacesuits are geared toward the microgravity environment of the Space Station. But those suits are very stiff; you walk with your hands on the Space Station. When we go to the Moon or Mars, our needs will be very different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amy\u2019s team recently introduced the Z2: a new generation of spacesuit that accommodates the microgravity of space, as well as the environments of other planets. \u201cLet\u2019s say you\u2019re doing geology on a planetary surface,\u201d says Amy. \u201cYou\u2019ll need to walk. You\u2019ll need to run. You\u2019ll need to bend over to pick up rock samples. You may even need to crawl at some point. The Z2 gives you the tools to be able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Z2 has been thoroughly tested, including in massive vacuum chambers, in a 10-kilometer walk in the desert, and in underwater sessions at NASA\u2019s Neutral Buoyancy Lab (the giant swimming pool where astronauts train in near-weightless conditions). Amy looks forward to seeing the Z2 suits (or their successors) making their way onto the International Space Station, and even onto deep space missions like the upcoming Orion program. \u201cWe always want to make sure our spacesuit capability is ready,\u201d says Amy. \u201cOur materials, our mobility systems, and our technology should always be ready for whatever NASA wants to do next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat I like about the job is that it\u2019s hands-on,\u201d says Amy, pun fully intended. \u201cI come to the lab every day and touch real spacesuits. Some people who work on a rocket engine may see it once, or never see it at all because their work is on a computer. But to be a good spacesuit engineer, you need to physically get into the spacesuit. The human body is a complex system, and that\u2019s what makes it so challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amy also enjoys carrying on the legacy of her father, and the hundreds of other Purdue graduates in the space program. \u201cWe have Boilermakers all over the place here,\u201d she says. \u201cThey are hard-working, successful people. If there\u2019s someone in charge of a project, or someone who\u2019s really on top of their stuff, it\u2019s probably a Purdue person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many people go into the family business. For Amy Ross (BSME \u201994, MSME \u201996), that family business just happens to include human spaceflight! As head of Advanced Spacesuit Pressure Garment Development at NASA, Amy designed the gloves used by every<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"people":[],"coauthors":[29,108],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-purdue-in-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":425,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"people","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/people?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purdue.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The future<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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