SPACE SUITS
Final Frontier Design is a private design firm crafting safety garments for the future of human space travel.
Since joining as a designer, my role has evolved into rather diverse responsibilities including user space suit training and testing, business development & operations, content writing, and event management. (Did I mention we’re a startup?)
USER RESEARCH
Suit operations provides valuable research and test data on product performance, usability, comfort, functionality, cycling, user behavior and psychology, and biometrics.
This, in turn, fuels design iteration, partnership development, grant and proposal writing, as well as scientific publication and conference presentations. I contribute to all these efforts.
OPERATIONS
In addition to User Research, I handle all aspects of space suit training including curriculum, visual design and instructional content for print and presentation.
Suits have brought me all over the country to spaceflight test facilities, technical universities, private flight centers and many parts between.
As part of my work, I’ve had the privilege of interfacing with members of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, media personalities, students, high-tech manufacturers and researchers, and even a few NASA astronauts.
LAUNCH MANIFEST
Our current work continues to advance specific suit designs and their overall technology readiness level (TRL). Our goal is TRL 9: Flight Proven Hardware with a near-term milestone of TRL 7: System Prototype Demonstration in a Space Environment.
Development is currently in progress through our official Space Act Agreement with NASA and collaboration with the FAA AST Office of Commercial Space Transportation to build civilian regulations for sub-orbital spaceflight.
Methods / Tools Used
- High Fidelity Prototyping
- Full- & Visual-Motion Simulator Training
- Analog Environment Simulation Testing
- Actual Environment Testing
- Hazard Analysis
- Contextual Design
- Experience Prototyping
- Ergonomic Analysis
- Industry (NASA) Standards Review
- Competitive Testing
- Literature Review
- A/B Testing
- Evidence-Based Design
- Rapid Iterative Testing & Evaluation
- Case Studies
- Usability Benchmarking
- Novice User Training & Feedback
- Expert User Feedback
- Fly-on-the-Wall Observation
- Crowdsourcing