
The Chinese space program has a long history of hat wearing, from the space shuttle’s astronaut hats, to NASA’s Space Shuttle Atlantis, and even to the robotic space suits worn by the first astronauts to land on the Moon.
Now, a pair of NASA astronauts, Chang Zheng and Wang Li, have teamed up to promote the science of spacecraft propulsion, which can be used to power spacecraft and help them fly to their destinations.
As part of a new initiative called “Chinagate”, Wang Li and Chang Zheng, both of the Chinese National Space Agency, have collaborated to design a hat that uses an “emotional engine” to make the wearer feel comfortable, excited, and relaxed during a mission.
Wang Li, an engineer at the National Space Center, in Beijing, has been designing hats that use a “homing engine”, a device that will keep a hat wearer from drifting off into a space suit.
This “holographic hat” has a large circular hole at the front to help the hat wearer maintain a constant distance from the spacecraft and to avoid the space suit’s drag, Wang Li said in a statement.
This hat, made from a 3D printed hat, has a hat liner that has been folded into the shape of a circle to help keep the wearer safe from the shuttle’s “misfire” system, he added.
It was a project Wang Li worked on as an undergraduate student, and he said it took a long time to design.
The first version of the hat was unveiled in September.
Wang Li is the second Chinese astronaut to wear the hat, joining Zhang Yaogan, who wore the hat during her mission to the International Space Station.
The hat will be available for purchase at the NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, in November.
Chang Zheng, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is also the creator of the “hockey hat”, a hat he designed for the space agency’s astronaut program.
It is similar in design to Wang Li’s hat, but has a smaller hole in the front and an open flap at the back, to help prevent hat wearing.
“We were inspired by NASA’s astronaut hat design, which was based on NASA’s design of a hat to help astronauts feel comfortable during their flight to the ISS,” Chang Zheng said in the statement.
“We designed the hockey hat with the same goal: to bring a more emotional feeling to the wearer, and to bring them closer to the spacecraft.”
This hat is available at the Space Hat Project website.