CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — In what might embarrass less adventurous souls, astronaut Koichi Wakata is returning to Earth with the underwear he kept on for a solid month during his space-station stay and scientists will check them out.
They’re experimental high-tech undies, designed in Japan to be odor free. The Japanese spaceman described his underwear test Thursday as shuttle Endeavour and its crew released some mini satellites, their final job before today’s re-entry. Wakata has been in space for 4 1/2 months.
“I haven’t talked about this underwear to my crew members,” Wakata said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But I wore them for about a month, and my station crew members never complained for about a month, so I think the experiment went fine.”
The underwear, called J-Wear, is a new type of anti-bacterial, water-absorbent, odor-eliminating clothing designed for space missions.
