Need a moment of levity? Try watching videos of astronauts falling on the moon. NASA's outtakes of Apollo astronauts tripping and stumbling as they bounce in slow motion are delightfully relatable."Astronauts are physically very capable, but they can struggle on the moon, where gravity is one-sixth that of Earth's but their inertia is still the same.
"During the Apollo era, when astronauts would fall, 80 percent of the time it was when they were doing excavation or some sort of job with a tool," says team member and MIT doctoral student Erik Ballesteros."The Artemis missions will really focus on construction and excavation, so the risk of falling is much higher. We think that SuperLimbs can help them recover so they can be more productive, and extend their EVAs.
The team first took a step back, to study the ways in which humans naturally recover from a fall. In their new study, they asked several healthy volunteers to attempt to stand upright after lying on their side, front, and back. Overall, the volunteers were able to stand stably with much less effort when assisted by the robot, compared to when they tried to stand alone while wearing the bulky suit.