March 2012

From: Yuri Ivanishin <International Space Station>

Subject: Pants in Space

Date: 21 March 2012 10:31:23 AM NZDT

To: Info@thunderpants.co.nz

Hello Thunderpants people.

I am here in space wearing your underpants. I have been wearing them for many weeks, while I am doing my work. I am a cosmonaut on the ISS. My work consists of scientific research and maintenance of station in proper conditions. One of the researches is devoted to determine how human body can withstand gravity forces. Thunderpants (I am liking your name!) is good to withstand gravity forces. Also good for microgravity. We are doing our physical activity in microgravity and Thunderpants is performing very good. They do not move up between the buttocks during exercise on the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System where we do most of our exercises for two hours six times a week for making bones strong. Microgravity can be fun but also inconvenient. Also we cannot have shower. We use wet wipes. But we smile in the face of these inconveniences.

Thank you for your underpants. The astronauts from the USA are admiring and would like to be wearing them too. They are having problems with their underpants migrating. This is especially not good yesterday when we were on space walk, it is impossible to dislodge uncomfortable underpants with space suit on. However, the walk was successful and we install the Vinoslivost Materials Sample Experiment which will investigate the influence of space on the mechanical properties of the materials. The Americans would like Thunderpants, they would prefer the pattern of the robots as they are making researches with Robonaut 2, the first humanoid in space. R2 cannot wear pants as he is only a top half, bottom half is a table. If Russians were making robot it would have legs I think. Is important to be able to dance. This robot would be called R2D2. (I joke!)  

The ISS is a unique environment and many researches and fun can be done. Sometimes we spend whole day on ceiling with Thunderpants on our head because there is no up and down in space. (I joke again!) It is best when you can look out the window. Yes, we have windows up here. From our low-Earth orbit the view is pretty great. A flight into space is a beautiful journey. I wave to your tiny country as we pass over, it is very small place for such big Thunderpants I think. Goodbye and thank you. Keep up the good work with firm and comfortable underpant, which is very suitable for work in space, I am happy to be telling everyone.

Your friend,

Yuri.

The Next Generation of Underpants
From the Ministry of Panty Affairs

Since the Thunderpants website launch in September sales have increased alongside inquiries from around the world; can I stock Thunderpants in Latvia, are the men’s and women’s small the same size? And what can I wear with these? But the most interesting inquiry to date has come from the US Military Division of Telemedicine and Advanced Textile Research proposing a partnership between Thunderpants and the military to design the next-generation of underpants – undies with artificial intelligence.

Walter Wedge, acting director of the ‘Wear and Forget Sensing Undies’ Think Tank has been a long time fan of Thunderpants. ‘It hit me like a bolt of lightning - Thunderpants could bridge the main objective: to make the high-tech textiles and design super comfortable, so war fighters will indeed comply and wear them -- that's where the whole "wear and forget" part comes in’ exclaims Wedge.

The Wear and Forget undies will monitor respiration, heart rate, activity, body posture, emotional response, and skin temperature. Ultimately intelligent underpants could provide useful information to medics in the field and even select and train war fighters for missions. The underpants will also include acoustic sensors, to assess ballistic impact and thoracic sounds for trauma.

Even though the ‘intelligent’ undies will have wider applications for use among athletes, employees, and civilian medical care the owners of Thunderpants, sisters Josie and Sophie Bidwill are morally opposed to war. ‘Our employees were really disappointed when we declined the proposal, they [the US Military] offered us a lot of money which meant we could all decrease our hours, increase our wages, and have a yearly holiday somewhere exotic, but how could we sleep at night knowing our undies would go to war?’ commented Sophie Bidwill.

Although Thunderpants may not be going to war anytime soon it looks like they could go intergalactic. A few weeks after contact from Walter Wedge, the Russian Aerospace program contacted Josie Bidwill wanting to take Thunderpants on their next mission into outer space. The intention of the Russian expedition is to experiment how everyday products perform in zero gravity.

Will we still need underwear in space?