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alanjg007
08-06-2014, 12:07 PM
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The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) had just announced a plan to commercialize its space suit cooling technology with the opening of a new line of underwear vests. These vests have the same cooling system used by astronauts when doing missions in space, though it is neatly packed to fit into a small, subtly wearable form factor.

As many space tech enthusiasts already know, body temperature control in outer space is quite complicated. You basically just build up heat in the vacuum of space, because there?s no way to dissipate it out of your internal system. Space suit cooling systems such as these help regulate body temperature by pumping coolant around a layer of clothing that touches the astronaut?s skin.

The underwear vest pushes coolant around a network of tubes underneath its fabric layers, lowering its temperature to around 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit). The coolant used for the suit is ordinary water by the way, and the small contraption below the vest can cool the entire thing for around 30 minutes with one liter of coolant. Quite short, but the vest is also actually designed to passively provide cooling to its wearer using its efficient sweat absorption and evaporation properties.

This isn?t the first time JAXA tried to commercialize their own developed space technologies. In fact, the Japanese space agency have already launched their own commercial brand, the JAXA COSMODE, using it as a vehicle to market usable space tech to the common public.

If you?re interested in getting your own space-tech cooling vest, you?d have to fork over somewhere around $600. You also have to do it fast though, because it?s a limited edition item, and they only have exactly 1,000 of these vests to give away.