NEW SPACESUIT designs selected by NASA this week for the Constellation program, its shuttle replacement. Shown here are a suit for critical moments aboard the Orion crew capsule [left] and for moon walking [right].
© NASA

Astronauts get new duds
It's fashion week for future astronauts. NASA this week chose a contractor to make spiffy new spacesuits for astronauts on the post-shuttle Constellation program, which the agency hopes will take U.S. space travelers back to the moon by 2020. The current space shuttle fleet faces mandatory retirement in 2010, and Constellation missions are set to begin in 2015. NASA has already awarded contracts for the program's Orion crew capsule and the Ares 1 rocket to launch it. This week NASA put the latest piece of hardware into place, awarding a preliminary six-year, $183.8-million contract to Oceaneering International, Inc., of Houston to design and build a basic spacesuit (for launches, landings and emergencies) as well as a suit for astronauts to wear during their stays on the moon. Oceaneering International beat out a joint venture by leading spacesuit contractors United Technologies Corporation's Hamilton Sundstrand of Windsor Locks, Conn., and ILC Dover, LP, of Frederica, Del., for the new contract, which could be worth up to $745 million when all is said and done, according to Reuters.

What's in a name? Pluto becomes just another "plutoid"
Opponents of Pluto's 2006 demotion from planet to "dwarf planet" status have a new reason to be peeved at astronomy's official name-issuing organization. In a sign that Pluto's second-class citizenship is here to stay, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) at a meeting this week in Oslo, Norway, declared that dwarf planets will now be called "plutoids." The official definition of a plutoid is a round celestial body in an orbit around the sun beyond Neptune's that has not cleared its orbital path of other bodies. So far there are only two known plutoids—Pluto and Eris, the latter of which enjoyed a fleeting moment of fame as the tenth planet. But astronomers expect to discover more. Former NASA science chief Alan Stern, the principal investigator on the New Horizons mission to Pluto, minced no words about the IAU's new designation. "It's just some people in a smoke-filled room who dreamed it up," he told the Associated Press. "Plutoids or hemorrhoids, whatever they call it—this is irrelevant." (Yes, but what do you really think?)

Chips ahoy? Food company beams Doritos ad into outer space
Snack food–maker Frito-Lay apparently believes there may be a market in outer space for its Doritos corn chips. The company announced this week that it plans to beam a 30-second video spot to a solar system 42 light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, within which are the seven stars that make up the Big Dipper. The target system consists of two known gas-giant planets orbiting a star quite close in size to our own, meaning that in principle there might be habitable worlds there. The ad, called "Tribe," which shows a gaggle of Doritos dancing around a jar of salsa, was the winning entry in the Doritos Broadcast Project, a U.K. contest to make a video conveying everyday life for inquisitive extraterrestrials. Only thing: How will ETs know Earthlings aren't a bunch of dancing little edible triangles?

Here Comes the Sun: NASA to Fly Probe into Solar Atmosphere
NASA this week announced that it plans to launch a probe in 2015 on a seven-year mission to study the sun. The space agency says the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory is designing the craft, dubbed Solar Probe+ (Solar Probe Plus), which will wield a carbon-composite heat shield to survive the intense 2,550-degree Fahrenheit (1,400-degree Celsius) temperatures and radiation that will blast it as it passes within 4.5 million miles (7.2 million kilometers) of the sun. Scientists believe the probe will help solve several mysteries about our closest star, most notably: why the corona surrounding it at 1.8 million degrees F (one million degrees C) is hotter than the solar surface, which is still a toasty 10,800 degrees F (6,000 degrees C). It also is hoped the probe will help astrophysicists find out why there's no organized solar wind (made up mostly ions and electrons) found in the vicinity of the sun's surface, even though it whips through the solar system at speeds ranging from about 670,000 to 1.8 million miles (1.1 million to 2.9 million kilometers) per hour. Learn more in a Scientific American Online 60-Second Science podcast describing the upcoming mission.