NASA’s next generation of lunar spacesuits is supposed to symbolize a confident return to the Moon, but one of the people who has actually lived in a suit for months at a time is not impressed. Former astronaut Kate Rubins has warned that although the new designs improve on Apollo, they still fall short of what crews will need on the surface of the Moon.
Her blunt verdict, that the suits “are not great right now,” cuts through the glossy renderings and fashion-world partnerships that have surrounded the Artemis era. It forces a harder question: are the agencies and companies racing to outfit astronauts for Jan’s planned landings prioritizing real performance over appearances and schedule pressure.
Rubins’ warning shot at the new lunar suits
When Kate Rubins says a spacesuit is not ready, I take that seriously. She has already flown two long-duration missions, including a second NASA flight for Expeditions 63 and beyond, and has spent hundreds of hours living with the limitations of current gear. In a recent discussion convened by the National Academies, she acknowledged that the new lunar suits are “better than Apollo” but added that she does not think they are “great right now,” arguing that they still have “a lot of flexibility and mobility issues” that could slow crews down on the surface.
Rubins’ critique is not a nostalgic defense of the old hardware from the Apollo era. Instead, she is drawing on detailed feedback from a poll of current and former astronauts who have been asked what they need from the next generation of suits. That survey work, described in the same Former astronaut session, highlights recurring concerns about range of motion, glove dexterity, and the ability to work for long stretches in one-sixth gravity without exhaustion. When Rubins says “they still have a lot of flexibility and mobility issues,” she is channeling that broader community, not just her own preferences.
From Apollo to Artemis, and why “better” is not enough
It is easy to assume that anything built half a century after Apollo must be superior, but lunar surface work is unforgiving. The Apollo suits were famously stiff, yet they were tailored around specific tasks like shoveling regolith, drilling cores, and deploying instruments. Rubins’ point that the new suits are “better than Apollo” but still not good enough underscores how high the bar has moved for Jan’s Artemis missions, which are expected to support longer stays and more complex science than the short Apollo excursions ever attempted.
Through the Artemis Program, NASA is already sending astronauts into analog environments to practice lunar operations in prototype suits. While the training shows that crews can move, kneel, and work with tools in the new designs, it also exposes the tradeoffs that Rubins is worried about. While the hardware is more modular and supports a wider range of body sizes than Apollo, the stiffness of joints, the weight distribution, and the way dust will grind into bearings and seals all remain open engineering challenges. “Better than Apollo” is a low bar if the goal is weeks of sustained fieldwork instead of a handful of brief visits.
Prada, Axiom Space, and the fashion of functionality
The most visible symbol of the new era is the partnership between Prada and Axiom Space, which has produced sleek-looking lunar suits for NASA. The images released by Prada and Axiom Space show a modernized exterior, with sharp lines and a color palette that looks more like high-end outdoor gear than the bulky white shells of the shuttle era. The companies have emphasized that Prada’s role is not just cosmetic, pointing to its experience with advanced textiles and materials as a way to improve durability and mobility.
As I see it, the risk is that the public conversation gets stuck on the fashion angle while the harder questions Rubins is raising about flexibility and fatigue get less attention. Prada’s design work for Axiom Space may well help with abrasion resistance and thermal control, but the core of a lunar suit is still its bearings, joints, and life support backpack. If the underlying structure does not let Crew members bend, twist, and climb comfortably for hours, the most stylish outer layer will not matter. Rubins’ skepticism, voiced in that National Academies session, is a reminder that the suits must first satisfy the people who will wear them, not the audiences who will see the promotional Image.
Industrial turbulence and the Collins Aerospace retreat
Behind the glossy renderings, the industrial base that supports Jan’s lunar ambitions is under strain. Collins Aerospace, one of the major players in spacesuit development, has already pulled back from a key Jun contract after concluding that it could not meet schedule and NASA’s mission objectives. In a company video, astronauts can be seen testing new suits and providing critical feedback, but the decision to step away shows how difficult it is to turn that feedback into a certified product on the timeline the agency wants.
When a major contractor like Collins Aerospace steps back, it does more than reshuffle corporate portfolios. It reduces competition, narrows the range of design philosophies in play, and increases the pressure on the remaining providers to deliver on aggressive milestones. For the Crew that will eventually ride NAS hardware down to the surface, that industrial turbulence translates into risk. If only one or two designs survive the gauntlet of testing, any flaw that emerges late in the process could ripple across the entire Artemis schedule, leaving astronauts with fewer options and less redundancy.
Redundancy, risk, and what astronauts really need
Spacesuits are not just clothing, they are life support systems, and redundancy is supposed to be built into every layer. Yet NASA has already lost some of that margin. Over the summer, internal critics pointed out that the agency’s new suit program had effectively given up its backup path, leaving it with fewer alternatives if the leading design runs into trouble. One detailed Keith note tied this loss of redundancy to a broader pattern of schedule-driven decisions, from the Starliner thruster issue to repeated EVA cancellations, that have already strained astronaut confidence.
From my perspective, Rubins’ criticism lands hardest in this context. When she says “I don’t think they’re great right now,” she is not just grading aesthetics or comfort, she is flagging a system that has less room for error than it should. Astronauts practicing lunar operations in new suits through the Artemis training campaigns are already discovering where joints bind, where gloves numb their fingers, and where fatigue sets in faster than expected. If those issues are not fixed before Jan’s landings, the people on the surface will be forced to choose between cutting tasks short and pushing their equipment to the edge of its tested envelope, a choice no one should have to make in one-sixth gravity.
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