Jan Schroder|Monday, 11 November 2019

In recent years, sportswear manufacturers have increasingly becomehigh-tech companies. With new materials and new production processes, theywant to help their top athletes sound out performance limits and ideally,break them. After all, innovation promises prestige - which then influencessales.

Searching for the ultimate promise of progress, some sportswearmanufacturers have recently joined forces with the industry thattraditionally embodies visions most radically: the space industry. Just afew weeks ago, US sportswear brand Under Armour unveiled fashionable outfits for commerical space flights withVirgin Galactic that looked as if they came straight out of a sci-fimovie.

Last week, German sportswear giant Adidas announced a long-term spacepartnership that is a bit more pragmatic: In the future, the company wantsto test new products for weightlessness. Therefore, it now works with theU.S. National Laboratory at the International Space Station (ISS), which ismanaged by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS). Aspart of the partnership, the first Adidas products have already been testedat ISS: In October, astronauts tried out how footballs behave under minimalgravitational influence. But this is only the beginning: "The cooperationwith the U.S. National Laboratory at the International Space Station andCASIS - one of the world's most advanced facilities - will help Adidasdevelop new standards for performance innovations," says James Carnes, vicepresident of brand strategy for Adidas, in a statement.

Christine Kretz, vice president of program and partnerships at the U.S.National Laboratory at the International Space Station, explains theadvantages of such experiments: Only the ambience of the ISS makes it ispossible to study the turning behavior of a football "without air currentsdisturbing it and the necessity of a holding device". "Because we cancontrol certain variables, we have the option of running tests and gainingknowledge that would not be possible on Earth," she says in a statement.

Next year, things will become a bit more complex: "As the first brand,Adidas will test shoe innovations under the extreme conditions of space,"says the sportswear manufacturer. Strictly speaking, it is about theoptimisation of the brand's "Boost" cushioning technology, which is used inthe soles of the eponymous sneaker line.

However, the sportswear manufacturer is hoping for even morefar-reaching insights from the cooperation: Adidas wants to derive lessonsfor training its athletes from the astronauts preparatory programs. Inaddition, the space station is supposed to be the "ultimate testing ground"for new recycling methods and sustainable production processes.

Photos: Adidas

This article was originally published on FashionUnited DE. Editedand translated by Simone Preuss.

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Adidas tests gravity's limits at the International Space Station - FashionUnited UK