A (Facetious) Letter to NASA and SpaceX Regarding Gloves: Veggie Share Week #6 12/2/20

Dear NASA and SpaceX, 

As humble farmers, we have a request: can you invent affordable work gloves that keep hands warm, dry, and dextrous in cold and wet environments?

We fully understand that you may desire us to direct our request to the US Department of Agriculture, however, we think you are better suited. 

After thousands of years of humans growing food, there is yet to be invented something that keeps our hands warm and dextrous in cold and wet weather. Harvesting anything by hand in temperatures lower than 45 degrees Fahrenheit can be quite challenging. In more northern climes, there is still food to be harvested when daytime temperatures hover just above freezing, like kale, tatsoi, and Brussels Sprouts. Sometimes we have to leave the food in the field because we can’t find a way to harvest it. Our fingers simply go numb and we can’t accomplish the task. 

Gloves such as these would provide efficacy and comfort to agricultural laborers and all workers who make their livings working in the outdoors – foresters, dairy farmers, prairie restorationists, sewer district workers, trash collectors, mail carriers, and so many more. 

You can send humans into space and keep them alive. It is a technological feat of epic proportions! Surely our tiny request would be an engineering cinch for you. 

Sincerely, 
Farmer Cassie