New Gear Keeps Spacewalking Shuttle Astronauts Comfortable Staying Warm Key To Building Orbiting Space Station

They did their best to chill out in the freezing vacuum of space, staying in the shadow of the shuttle.

But to NASA’s delight, Endeavour’s two spacewalking astronauts kept warm Saturday thanks to new heated gloves, thermal socks, boot liners and toasty long underwear.

“Couldn’t be more comfortable,” Michael Gernhardt said. “These gloves are working great. I’m warm.”

Gernhardt and James Voss spent nearly an hour each on the end of the robot arm, raised 30 feet above the cargo bay in the coldest possible position to mimic a space station construction site.

The temperature dipped down to minus 120 or minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit, said Gerald Miller, NASA’s lead flight controller for spacewalks. A precise figure won’t be available until temperature sensors are examined after the flight.

One by one, the spacewalkers remained motionless on the robot arm in an attempt to get cold - to no avail. Voss, in fact, had to turn off the fingertip heaters in his gloves at one point.

The two men were just as comfortable bustling around the cargo bay, although the thermometer down there registered a mere minus 75.

NASA wants as much practice as possible working in this deep-freeze environment before construction of an international space station begins in two years.

Officials estimate American astronauts will have to perform 200 to 250 hours of spacewalks per year from 1999 through 2001 to assemble and maintain the huge orbiting outpost. That’s four to five times the amount performed in 1993, NASA’s peak spacewalking year because of the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission.

Saturday’s successful spacewalk eased some of the worries.

“It’s given us a vote of confidence that we’re certainly on the right track,” Miller said.

Unlike NASA’s previous spacewalk, cut short by astronauts’ freezing fingers, Saturday’s excursion lasted the full 6-1/2 hours.

“I have something to smile about,” Voss said once he was back inside the crew cabin.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration sped up production of the battery-heated gloves following February’s frigid spacewalk and made other improvements to the $10.4 million spacesuits.