Peter K. Homer
Encyclopedia
Peter K. Homer of Southwest Harbor, Maine
, won $200,000 from NASA
for his entry in the Astronaut
Glove
Challenge. The competition was held on Thursday, May 3, 2007, with a total of five teams competing (two of which dropped out prior the commencement of the competition), and was one of NASA's seven Centennial Challenges
. The gloves were rated on strength, flexibility and comfort. Homer's glove design performed better overall than the competition and NASA hopes it will help improve future astronaut gloves. He was unemployed at the time of his victory.
He just recently won the NASA glove competition a second time.
When performing a space walk, NASA astronauts use their hands as their primary way to move around and complete tasks. After many hours of working inside the pressurized gloves, the force required by the astronauts to move their fingers and wrists back and forth repeatedly often results in blisters, abrasions and damaged fingernails. New technologies would reduce discomfort and make the astronauts' jobs easier and safer. .
Of his space-glove know-how, Homer said: “I had to make it up, because there is no book you can buy about this. There is no pattern.” .
Homer has since been hired by Los Angeles-based Orbital Outfitters, which intends to put Homer's engineering and sewing skills to work on a pressurized space suit for suborbital space flyers.
In 2009 Peter K. Homer once again won the Astronaut Glove Challenge. Differing from the previous competition, the 2009 version of the glove was required to have a thermal micrometeorite garment, which is the outermost layer of the astronaut's glove.
Southwest Harbor, Maine
Southwest Harbor is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. Located on Mount Desert Island, the population was 1,966 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
, won $200,000 from NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
for his entry in the Astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
Glove
Glove
A glove is a garment covering the hand. Gloves have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb; if there is an opening but no covering sheath for each finger they are called "fingerless gloves". Fingerless gloves with one large opening rather than individual openings for each...
Challenge. The competition was held on Thursday, May 3, 2007, with a total of five teams competing (two of which dropped out prior the commencement of the competition), and was one of NASA's seven Centennial Challenges
Centennial Challenges
The Centennial Challenges are NASA space competition prize contests for non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams.-Current Challenges:...
. The gloves were rated on strength, flexibility and comfort. Homer's glove design performed better overall than the competition and NASA hopes it will help improve future astronaut gloves. He was unemployed at the time of his victory.
He just recently won the NASA glove competition a second time.
When performing a space walk, NASA astronauts use their hands as their primary way to move around and complete tasks. After many hours of working inside the pressurized gloves, the force required by the astronauts to move their fingers and wrists back and forth repeatedly often results in blisters, abrasions and damaged fingernails. New technologies would reduce discomfort and make the astronauts' jobs easier and safer. .
Of his space-glove know-how, Homer said: “I had to make it up, because there is no book you can buy about this. There is no pattern.” .
Homer has since been hired by Los Angeles-based Orbital Outfitters, which intends to put Homer's engineering and sewing skills to work on a pressurized space suit for suborbital space flyers.
In 2009 Peter K. Homer once again won the Astronaut Glove Challenge. Differing from the previous competition, the 2009 version of the glove was required to have a thermal micrometeorite garment, which is the outermost layer of the astronaut's glove.