Haute 100 lister Elon Musk’s plans for interplanetary domination continue with legendary costume designer Jose Fernandez. The Silicon Valley tycoon has commissioned Fernandez to design customized in-house spacesuits for SpaceX, a company that manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft that Musk co-founded and remains the CEO.
Earlier this year, SpaceX reached out to a variety of companies, including Fernandez, to design a suit within a short span. The sculptor and costume designer told the Musk’s company he was unable to create a full spacesuit, but will create a helmet for him. Fernandez said in an interview with Bleep, “They had two weeks to present the suit to him and I told them I couldn’t do a full suit in two weeks but that I may be able to do a helmet. There were four other companies working on bids as well and at the end of the process, he hated everything except the helmet. I worked with him for six months and at the end of that, we created a suit that they are now reverse-engineering to make functional for flight.”
For those of you unfamiliar with Fernandez, he has created a number of superhero/fantasy characters of the last two decades. Fernandez, who began his career in 1989, work can be seen in movies like Godzilla, Men in Black, Alien III, Bicentennial Man as well as a number of legendary comic book movies like Batman, X-Men, Batman and Robin, and Fantastic Four. He has even created costumes for American singer, songwriter, rapper Will. I. Am.
Musk is slated to reveal the spacesuits in the coming months.
In addition to “badass spacesuits” as Musk puts it, there is more news regarding the South African-born Canadian-American businessman’s other business venture. According to Business Insider, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) said on Monday that it will use a passive magnetic levitation system developed by Lawrence Livermore National Labs in the US.
