Elon Musk’s private space company has hired Jose Fernandez, superhero movie costume designer, to design spacesuits for his astronauts.
Fernandez, with his company Ironhead Studio, has quite a resume when it comes to costume design.
He’s designed superhero costumes for movies like Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War.
He’s also designed costumes for X-Men movies, for Wonder Woman, Tron, and for The Penguin in Batman Returns.
Spacesuits have been slaves to function for a long time.
The extreme environments in space have constrained their design to utilitarian forms, out of necessity.
Whatever designs Fernandez comes up with, they will still have to have functionality as their primary concern.
Having someone with excellent visual design skills will certainly spice things up.
SpaceX had four other companies working on bids for this design work, but in the end, it was Fernandez that won.
Over a twenty year span, he has also created costumes for Wolverine, Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, and Thor.
It will be super exciting to see what Fernandez comes up with, and how the design will meld with engineering requirements to create a safe, practical spacesuit.
Purists may scoff at having someone from Hollywood involved in spacesuit design.
The ESA and NASA are also working on new spacesuit designs.
