Take it from sci-fi writer, Robert Heinlein: “Have Space Suit - Will Travel”

A newly formed space group, Orbital Outfitters, is taking that axiom to new heights.

Rick Tumlinson is founder and chief executive officer of Orbital Outfitters, eyeing the design of new space suits that are cool, functional, and right out of science fiction.

The space firm is hard at work on space suit offerings that are more like “tuxedo rentals combined with airbags,” Tumlinson said May 25 at the National Space Society’s 26th annual International Space Development Conference being held here in Dallas, Texas.

His team includes Chris Gilman, well-known for his Hollywood special effects work that has caught our collective attention in numbers of science fiction films.

Now being produced is Suborbital Space Suit 1 that crews of suborbital spaceships, and eventually future passengers, can lease for launch. “We are here to make money…and make space safer, while making space more exciting and more cool,” Tumlinson reported.

Tumlinson also envisions his firm’s new space suit designs are ideal for those extremeophiles among us hungering to base jump from the edge of space - creating a new sport of space diving in the process.

The group is talking with the private rocket firm, Armadillo Aerospace, to have a craft take a person outfitted in their suit up to 120,000 feet altitude for a jump. 

“What we’re about is making space as safe as possible. We’re also trying to make space as exciting as possible,” Tumlinson reported. “We have our first customer. We have our investment. We need a little bit of money, but not much. The first suit will be delivered, hopefully, around the end of the year or so, something like that,” he said.

For related stories on space diving, check out:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_diving_010608-1.html

or

http://www.space.com/news/060713_big_jump.html