These boots are made for walking—on the moon

As NASA’s Artemis mission to the Moon approaches, the Emerging Technologies Conference at ATA’s Expo 2025 offered an update on the preparations. In a session titled, “Creating the Artemis Lunar Boots,” Morgan Campbell revisited the challenges human space travel has always faced, focusing on the planned mission to return to the Moon—77 years after the first human Moon landing.

More specifically, Campbell is working on the all-important lunar boot, a critical part of the suit astronauts will wear while on the Moon’s surface. She is an aerospace life support systems soft goods specialist with David Clark Co., Worcester, Mass. The company pioneered the design, development and manufacture of air and space crew protective equipment. 

“Why go back to the Moon at all,” Campbell asks, and she’s ready with the answer. This time, the crew will venture into previously unexplored territory, including the lunar South Pole, a permanently shaded region where surface temperatures are some of the lowest in the universe, and where astronauts intend to retrieve surface samples including polar ice. 

The Artemis era, begun in 2017, will also be distinguished by establishing a permanent human research presence on the Moon. While the Apollo mission’s goal may seem simple in comparison—to safely land a man on the Moon and return him to Earth— the information that mission provided has been critically important in preparing for these Artemis missions.

An ever-present danger is the lunar dust, called regolith, which Campbell says “has been compared to powdered glass because there’s no erosion.” Astronaut Gene Cernan called lunar regolith “the greatest inhibitor to a nominal operation on the Moon.”

Micrometeoroids pose another serious hazard. “You can’t dodge them because you can’t see them,” she says, “And they can be very dangerous.” 

The Apollo lunar boot incorporated an overboot made from Beta cloth, Chromel-R (woven steel), Kapton, Mylar, Dacron and Beta felt with a Nomex boot pad. These boots were worn over integrated, pressurized suit-boots and used specifically for Moonwalks. 

The Artemis lunar boots, 2020 to the present, are integrated into the space suit and use a three-layer approach. The outside layer is the one that will “worry about dust,” she says. There’s a mechanical and a chemical bond connecting the insole to the outsole, which protects the “bladder” filled with air. 

An additional challenge is making something with as few needle holes as possible, as that’s where lunar dust can get in, she points out. To provide enough insulation to keep the astronauts feet warm, the team is experimenting with “a bunch of different materials layered together,” she says. “You kind of have to consider just about anything.” 

Artemis II, scheduled for February-April 2026, will launch the first crewed mission in which four astronauts will fly around the Moon to test critical systems. Artemis III, scheduled for 2028, will send a crewed mission to land on the Moon. 

Janet Preus is senior editor of Textile Technology Source. She can be reached at janet.preus@textiles.org.