Adidas vs Gravity

Adidas will be the first-ever company to test their sneakers in space (on the ISS). The company signed a contract for several years with the US National Laboratory on the ISS.

Adidas believes that conditions on the ISS, such as microgravity, will be useful for testing the company’s products and potentially help to make them better. At the beginning of this year, the corporation sent soccer balls to the space station in order to better understand their flight characteristics. As Christina Kretz, vice president for partnership with the US National Laboratory for the ISS explained: in microgravity, you can see how the launched ball behaves when it is not affected by air flows and other physical conditions that exist on Earth. Gravity distorts the trajectory of the ball, and air flows on Earth affect its rotation. Researchers are able to concentrate on other characteristics of the ball when excluding those conditions.

Now Adidas plans to test sneakers in space – in particular, Boost technology, which is used in the production of the company’s shoes. The corporation wants to see how the technology will work without gravity, and come up with a way to make shoes more comfortable and effective for sports.

“Outside the Earth atmosphere, the extreme conditions of microgravity and temperature make it possible to conduct unique research tests that can only happen in space,” said Adidas Vice President of Global Strategy James Carnes.

The company wants to see how the astronauts prepare to stay on the ISS in order to apply the knowledge gained in the production of clothing. Adidas is interested in how the human muscles work in microgravity. “At Adidas, we believe that through sport we have the power to change lives, and we want to learn how to make sport accessible to everyone, wherever humanity goes – Earth, space and beyond,” Carnes said.