Smart Shirts?

Hello ATS, it now appears that we have Smart Shirts coming soon. A Montreal based company known as Hexoskin develops Smart shirts which monitor the human body and sends the information to the respective monitoring agency. The Canadian Space Agency hopes to send a shirt into Space, however, NASA is testing the shirts on its mock MARS mission in Hawaii. The crew now conducting a mock Mars mission at the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) facility uses Hexoskin frequently to look at how well crewmembers are coping in the harsh, high-altitude environment.

Hexoskin is the commercial version of a prototype shirt called Astroskin, which was tested last year during a 45-day mission in Antarctica. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) hopes to fly a version of this shirt in space, although a flight date has not been set.

Montreal-based Hexoskin has been expanding its line of products in the past year, including shirts tailored for winter activities and a new line aimed at attracting teenagers. The data for Hexoskin can be downloaded to various types of software, CEO Pierre-Alexandre Fournier told Space.com.

"We want people to conduct research in a real-life context instead of doing health research in a clinical environment, a controlled environment, such as making people run on treadmills," Fournier said. "We want to know what happens to people when they climb mountains, what happens to people when they take walks around the city, when they stay at home, when they sleep at home."

In addition to its possible space applications, the technology has been touted as a tool to help monitor the health of residents in remote communities. This is especially relevant in Canada, where many thousands of residents live in northern, rural areas.

Hexoskin and the CSA are also looking at how the health of seniors relates to the health of astronauts, as many effects of aging are observed in orbit: bone loss, muscle weakness and blood-flow changes, to name a few. Fournier said 100 groups in 12 countries are doing health research with Hexoskin.

Smart shirts? My first thought was...what? Now, the more I think of it, the more this sounds like a good idea. A good idea for health reasons but the potential for this technology to be abused is off the charts. Still pretty cool though. What says ATS?

www.space.com...

a reply to: lostbook

No. Just, no.

Phones and 911 are there for a reason. No need for my shirt to listen to every breath I take, and me feeding it batteries in addition of feeding batteries to my remotes and penlights and keyboards.

a reply to: swanne

I with you.

""We want to know what happens to people when they climb mountains, what happens to people when they take walks around the city, when they stay at home, when they sleep at home."
"

They don't know what happens, they kidding?
Have they Never been for a walk?
One more monitoring system we don't need.

How many people in real need would not receive help in time, just because some Drama Queens have broken nail.

Not so good idea.. And expensive if not really well thought out.

a reply to: swanne

Not to mention invasion of privacy. With these shirts someone could constantly track your movements