Complexity of Sizing for Space Suit Applications

The ‘fit’ of a garment is often considered to be a subjective measure of garment quality. However, some experts attest that a complaint of poor garment fit is a symptom of inadequate or excessive ease, the space between the garment and the wearer. Fit has traditionally been hard to quantify, and space suits are an extreme example, where fit is difficult to measure but crucial for safety and operability. A proper space suit fit is particularly challenging because of NASA’s need to fit an incredibly diverse population (males and females from the 1 to 99 percentile) while developing a minimum number of space suit sizes. Because so few sizes are available, the available space suits must be optimized so that each fits a large segment of the population without compromising the fit of any one wearer.