In space, it's even worse. Venture outside on a space walk and your pressure suit's thick gloves can impede any number of tasks, from climbing around the space station's exterior to handling delicate tools and bits of equipment. And, of course, they look about as fashionable as a giant Mickey Mouse hand.
Fortunately, past and present designers have dreamed up various hand wear alternatives, some of which are sure to turn heads on your next extraterrestrial commute:
The Claw: Back in the 1950s, it wasn't even clear that space gloves (or even mittens!) would be a possibility. After all, the material would need to be durable and flexible enough to enable the wearer to manipulate objects and do so without worrying about tearing the glove open. As such, you saw a lot of iron gauntlet hands in illustrations. There were even space suit designs with mechanical claws -- much like those on old atmospheric diving suits.
As the photo to the right illustrates, they were quite fashionable in the science fiction pulps. You can find more examples cataloged here at Project RHO. As we all know, the age of astronauts with hooks for hands never quite came to pass. But as we gaze into the future and consider manned trips to hostile worlds, who knows? Let's just hope there aren’t any unfortunate "first contact" handshakes in store.
Robotic Hand: If you're like me, you grew up dreaming of having a robotic hand. Not that I was exactly clamoring for dismemberment, but "Star Wars" and "The Terminator" just made it all too cool looking. Soda can? Crushed. Jail bars? Double crushed? Kitten? Gently stroked and petted because robot hands are THAT VERSATILE. At least in the movies.
So how about space suits with robotic hands? At higher operating pressures, the fingers of older-style spacesuit gloves become rather stiff. This hinders dexterity. In addressing this problem, researches have developed high-pressure gloves with metal knuckle and palm joints. One line of research even explored the addition of robotic enhancements to mechanically augment the glove's grip -- or even adding additional backpack-anchored arms to either carry equipment or assist in tasks. You know, like Doctor Octopus. David L. Akin of the University of Maryland lays it all out here.
On one hand, however, all these mechanical accessories only encumber a suited human even more. And really, as DARPA and NASA's Robonaut program demonstrates, if you're going to robotize astronauts, why not just go whole-hog and put a robot up into space? Whether rolling around Mars on wheels or attached to the end of a mechanical boom, this robotic humanoid offers most of the advantages to human space exploration without endangering anyone.
Vibrotactile Gloves: While not a perfect solution to the problems posed by thick, restrictive pressurized space gloves, this is about the best we've come up with. According to The Register, NASA is currently working on technology to stimulate the neuro-receptors in a user's fingertips with various waveforms to convey the sensation of touching varied surfaces. In other words, the glove touches a rough surface and "a small vibrating element" would provide the sensation of actually touching such a surface. The article goes on to stress how this technology might allow an astronaut to "air type" a message, as if an imaginary keyboard floated in front of them (perhaps visualized for the user through the visor).
I will leave you to imagine a future in which "air guitar gloves" are a reality.
Get tactile at HowStuffWorks.com:
How Prosthetic Limbs Work
How the RobotNaut Will Work
How Space Suits Work
How Virtual Reality Works
More Space Fashion:
Vol. 1: Earth's Stupidest-Looking Space Suits
Vol.2: Sexy Space Suits?
Image: This old Science Fiction Quarterly cover shows the type of cosmic hand wear that many futurists were imagining back in the day. (Buyenlarge/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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