Good News: Its A Perfectly Safe NASA-STD-Gorilla.Suit
Keith’s Update: Nearly 3 days after I originally submitted my Gorilla suit request to NASA PAO (long after foreign publications had already gotten answers from NASA PAO on this topic) I finally got my response back from NASA. What is hilarious is that NASA says officially that it has no idea what the suit is made out of (or how much it weighs or what volume it uses) but states that it meets all safety requirements. How does one say that a safety certification has been made unless you know what the suit is made out of? In addition, no one at JSC approved it for shipping. It just got stuck in there.
I am all for the health and well being of the crew, but when NASA drags its feet on such a simple set of questions and then issues replies that are inherently contradictory, you have to wonder if there actually is a “process” in place or if they just make this all up as they go. As for the cost: well, it costs money to send things up, and even if there is an allocation for these things, it still costs the same amount to ship a pound of science as it does to ship a pound of gorilla suit. Just sayin’
Here is the official NASA response (below) from Brandi Dean at NASA JSC, verbatim:
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“Hi Keith Your request was sent on to me. I’m sorry about the delay in answering. I actually thought someone else had already responded to you.
The short answer here is that crew members’ family and friends have a certain amount of room designated to them to send gifts up to the space station. (The exact space and dimensions vary depending on what vehicle it’s going up on.) The space is either for crew care packages or crew ballast bags (basically care packages that take up weight that needs to be added for vehicle stability). The families are given a list of items that that aren’t allowed (things like electronics, things with batteries, software), and the contents they send up are reviewed by our safety personnel to check for flammability and off gassing. But other than that safety review, the contents are considered personal and confidential. So we don’t have any insight into what the family is sending up.
With that background here are the answers to your actual questions:
– Can you tell me what the Gorilla suit is made out of i.e. what kind of material(s)? — NASA did not purchase the suit and does not have that information.
– Is this Gorilla suit COTS (where was it purchased?) or was it specially made? How much did it cost? — NASA did not purchase it and does not have that information.
– Was the Gorilla suit subjected to standard outgassing, flammability, microbial, and particulate standards? Did it meet those requirements or was a waiver granted? — It was reviewed to ensure that it meets the safety requirements that all cargo sent up by friends and family members of the crew must meet.
– How much does the Gorilla suit weigh and how much volume did it use inside the cargo vehicle that carried it up? — The care package went up on Orbital OA-4 in December.
– Is the suit considered “crew preference”, “crew clothing”, or “education and outreach”? — It was a gift sent up by the crew member’s friends and family.
– Will the Gorilla suit remain on the ISS after Kelly leaves? If so where will it be stored? — Kelly has the option of using some of his allocated down mass to bring it back with him. If he does not, the crew remaining at the station may keep it if they would like to do so. A storage location will be suggested by flight controllers on the ground.
– Did the shipping of the Gorilla suit to orbit bump anything off the manifest – if so, what was bumped? — It did not bump anything it was sent up as part of a ballast allocation provided to crew friends and family.
– Was this manifested by JSC or CASIS? — Neither.
– Who approved of the shipping of the gorilla suit to the ISS? Was NASA HQ involved in the decision making process? — Crew member families have the ability to send private gifts to orbit. Their cargo is reviewed to ensure that it meets safety standards, but is otherwise considered private and kept confidential.
I hope that is helpful. If you have any additional questions, just let me know. Thanks,
Brandi Dean
Public Affairs Office
NASA JSC”
This Is Why We Built The International Space Station, earlier post
“As for the cost: well, it costs money to send things up, and even if there is an allocation for these things, it still costs the same amount to ship a pound of science as it does to ship a pound of gorilla suit. Just sayin'”
So are you saying that we should stop personal allocations or gifts from family because they aren’t directly related to station science? That is what I am hearing from you.
No, “Joe”. I never said that. You just wish that I did.
Keith there is a process for crewmembers to bring personal items onboard. Can you explain what exactly you are saying be done about that current process?
There is no process. This should be ample proof thereof. How can you do a safety check on something with an unknown composition?
I’m not sure I understand. In another comment, you said the Kelly brothers had “disregarded agreed-to procedures” and in this comment, you are saying there is no process. If there is no process, what procedures did they disregard?
They claim that that they followed the process – yet the fact that NASA can say that they approved something as being safe while simultaneously saying a few sentences later that they do not know what the suit is made out of clearly suggest no “process”. Or wait, maybe someone does know what it is made of (I actually am certain that someone did) and did the right thing. But we won’t know since NASA can’t seem to figure out if it happened or not and can’t seem to explain how it all works. When asked who approved the shipment they say no one at JSC did except that is where the payload safety stuff is done. Where is the “process” if NASA itself is confused about what is or is not done – by whom and when?
All this seems to prove is that NASA PAO doesn’t know what the gorilla suit was made of. In the big scheme of things, I’m sure that there are quite a few things that NASA PAO does not know the answer to.
I’m sorry Keith but you are absolutely incorrect. There is an appendix to the Common IRD describing the process for manifesting crew personal items. There is no way the station program would allow crewmembers to bring up items without a materials cert and approval by S&MA. Every single item on the ISS has traceability.
You really should read all of my comments. I have said I am certain someone looked at this despite NASA’s confusing and contradictory answers.. But wait: NASA’s official response said that NASA does not know what the suit is made out of – yet they also claim – in the very same statement – that safety regs were followed. Please tell me how you can do a safety evaluation on something if you do not know what it is made of. Really, how do you do that?
The whole reason why they do offgas and flammability testing is so they don’t have to know what COTS flight items are made of. Addressing the known unknowns with spectroscopy is extremely expensive and would drive your carefully calculated cost-to-orbit price up with no appreciable difference in risk.
There is also an NCR (non compliance report) process for safety which allows the program to accept risk associated with items that dont meet requirements. Strictly speaking, this IS following safety regulations.
There is also a difference between the ISS safety certification process (managed by educated engineers) and the communication process with the idiots that work in PAO.
Yes, I know. Guess what I used to do when I worked at NASA … That said, the agency just made these official statements and … I know from personal experience that some things fly with a wink of the eye.
yes, but the curious thing here is those things are things you don’t want flaunted in front of the camera, like medication, body bags, or – ahem – pornographic DVDs…
Then what are you saying? Can you clarify your position? You complained that shipping up this suit meant that a scientific payload wasn’t shipped up. If any shipment that isn’t directly related to station science is a waste in your eyes then it seems to me that you oppose having personal allotments.
I asked NASA if it prevented a science payload form being shipped. They said that it did not. Stop putting words in my mouth. Second and last warning.
My concern is not with the cost, it is the way this can be portrayed in the media to the detriment of the program. Anyone old enough to remember Apollo 14 will recall how playing Golf on the moon was a serious image problem. In my opinion, it made cancelling the Apollo program much easier to accomplish. A gorilla suit on ISS is an equivalent embarrassment. NASA should explain to their Astronauts that there is good PR and bad PR.
What is more of a concern to me is that no one at NASA HQ or elsewhere at NASA except a few people knew about this and that the Kelly brothers just did their own PR on this. But who cares, it’s only the taxpayers’ $100m space station, right?
There is a fairly sizeable staff of people between NASA and the Russians and the different groups that take care of the launch vehicles and cargo vehicles and the on-orbit environment and they are all looking at safety certs for materials and hazards, mass, packaging, and they have prioritized lists of what needs to fly. Often they look to fill the vehicle with ballast weight just to make sure weight and balance check out.
i am guessing that Headquarters ISS staff is probably no more than a handful and probably don’t check most flight manifests for any reason-not really sure what Headquarter’s job is-probably making sure the paychecks are delivered.
JSC refused to respond to a simple series of inquiries from NASA HQ for almost 3 days.
Maybe they thought the questions were silly.
If everyone at NASA discussed this and ran analysis of every type of thread used and pictures of it circulated all across NASA it would have made for a rather .. lame surprise don’t you think? Or should NASA have dept for pre approaving all off world humor?
The Kelly brothers disregarded agreed-to procedures that were in place and they knew that they were doing so. When the footage showed up on NBC no one had bothered to tell NASA HQ. WHen NASA HQ forwarded media inquiries to JSC they ignored them for several days.
How would they have violate procedure. Somebody gave it to NASA or Orvbital as part of the friends and family gift, is was declared safe and approved to fly. I don’t understand how the imagery could have made it back without NASA controllers, PAO, or the imagery or the video group seeing it? There’s at least 4 or 5 groups that look for imagery coming down.
I think a public flogging of the Kelly brothers is in order once he returns!
Come on Keith, this is not a big deal.
Of much more importance is why the launch date for EM-2 keeps slipping to the right and price for the SLS mobile launch tower keeps skyrocketing.
Sorry to disagree.
People are living there-in this case for nearly a year. Its a habitat the size of a large jumbo jet. Its no more embarrassing than playing a guitar, keyboard, or flute, or bringing a book for off-duty reading, or conducting some unplanned and unsupported science or spending a sleep cycle looking out the cupola observation deck.
With longer missions there is going to be need for more recreation.
Its not a 6 day Apollo mission in a vehicle the size of a compact car, in which every minute of time on the moon is accounted for.
don’t be a bonehead, if the general public saw this they wouldn’t snicker and fire up another blunt…get real!
It’s a lot better to portray astronauts as human beings rather than robots working for a government organization that needs to maintain a specific image. It would be amazing to see some more of the behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on at the ISS – like zero-gravity races or non-PR daily conversations astronauts have with one another – than just be fed the same videos of astronauts answering the same questions from the public over and over again.
We are, after all, hoping to open up the space frontier for human beings to explore and live in. In order to do so, we need to show what it’s actually like to LIVE in space as humans – not just what it’s like to work in space for a government agency.
That’s entirely wrong. The last three Apollo moon missions had already been cancelled when Apollo 14 flew. Apollo 20 was cancelled in January of 1970, and two more flights were cancelled in September of 1970. Apollo 14 flew from Jan. 31 to Feb. 9 of 1971.
Granted, I was pretty young at the time. I’m not arguing with your timeline. However, I believe it is entirely reasonable to believe that public pressure to continue Apollo after the initial cancellation notices could have allowed further missions. There was flight hardware which never flew. Public pressure to continue Apollo was dampened by the “Golfing on the moon” debacle in Apollo 14. Note there were additional shuttle flights added after “cancellation”. Which means that once a program is cancelled, all hope is not lost. My point still stands. There is a risk that the video of a man wearing a gorilla suit in ISS can be used against the agency toward de-funding the program. In my opinion, it is hard to imagine a more stupid stunt to be ridiculed by the general public.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Apollo 20 was cancelled so that its Saturn V could be used to launch Skylab. The CM and lunar lander for it were never completed. The next two cancellations were basically for budget reasons, but their CM hardware was reassigned to support the Apollo-Soyuz test project (for Apollo 15, Apollo 16’s hardware was reassigned to Apollo 15) and used on Apollo 17 (Apollo 18). Production on the lunar landers and scientific hardware was stopped, and could not easily have been restarted, whereas we still had the Shuttles and a surplus External Tank after the proposed cancellation date, which allowed for an additional flight.
We are, in fact, very lucky that Apollos 16 and 17 were not cancelled as well, this was strongly under consideration by the Nixon administration in 1971.
Budget pressure from Congress at the time was tremendous, as the Federal budget had just exceeded $200 billion, the Vietnam War was still going on, and many then (as still happens now) did not understand how the space program produced any tangible benefits to the American people. The general public was at best ambivalent about the continuation of Apollo, and there was no public pressure to continue the Apollo program, before or after Apollo 14.
There’s no harm in doing something fun when you’re in the process of doing something that is potentially very risky. It alleviates the tension. Also keep in mind that the gorilla suit was not a NASA-sponsored item, it was part of a shipment of personal items up to the astronaut by his family. Astronauts do have some free time allotted to do their own things, and it is part of public outreach to do things that the general public can relate to, whereas most of the time they’re not, they’re doing “boring” science tasks.
SMAC=Spacecraft maximum allowed concentration
SMAG=Spacecraft maximum allowed gorrillas
I remember the big controversy over the Apollo 15 stamp scandal. Every item they took into space was signed off by NASA, they just weren’t supposed to profit off those items, oops!
Of course, later on NASA made a profit by selling hundreds of thousands of postal covers flown on the shuttle.
Goes all the way back to the first Gemini flight and John Young taking up a corned beef sandwich
Today’s history lesson. Lol
Your comment borders on being incomprehensible.
Deleting incomprehensible posts takes the fun out of it, Keith!
Besides. Half of mine are incomprehensible as well.
There’s an interview out there where Scott Kelly says he’s not bringing back any souvenirs when he comes home.
Welp, I guess this means the gorilla suit is staying on-board the ISS for a little while longer!