How many problems can one material solve? According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., the answer may well be limitless, thanks to its new 3-D-printed metallic “space fabric,” designed to be especially useful outside Earth’s atmosphere. Among its many possible applications: regulating the temperature of an astronaut’s suit (one side of the textile reflects light, the other absorbs it) and folding into a backup antenna (the metal can be tailored to conduct radio waves). Although it’s still a prototype, creator Raul Polit Casillas says the ultimate goal is to make the “highly adaptable” fabric even more utilitarian by enabling astronauts to custom-print in space.
This appears in the May 22, 2017 issue of TIME.
More Must-Read Stories From TIME
- Inside the Death of a Rural Daycare
- Exclusive: Inside Ukraine’s Secret Effort to Train Pilots for U.S. Fighter Jets
- TIME’s First Interview in the Metaverse: How a Filmmaker Made a Movie and Fell in Love in VR
- How The Inflation Reduction Act Will Spur a New Climate Tech Ecosystem
- Climate-Conscious Architects Want Europe To Build Less
- Social Media Companies Like TikTok Hope to Fight Election Misinformation. Experts Say Their Plans Aren’t Enough
- How I Got My Students to Stop Staring at Screens
- Author Mimi Zhu Is Relearning What It Means to Love After Trauma
Read More From TIME