Philip Carvil, a PhD student at KCL funded by the European Space Agency’s Science and technology Office (ESTEC), has been working with the Space Medicine Office at the European Astronaut Centre to develop and test a ‘loading’ SkinSuit for astronauts that aims to help mitigate some of the health problems they face in microgravity. Specifically, he is looking at how the SkinSuit can affect the spine “with the aim to attenuate spinal elongation in space and assist in preserving the spinal stabiliser muscles.”