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Book Synopsis
How the twenty-one-layer Apollo spacesuit, made by Playtex, was a triumph of intimacy over engineering.

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: twenty-one layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of Playtex—a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

Playtex's spacesuit went up against hard armor-like spacesuits designed by military contractors and favored by NASA's engineers. It was only when those attempts failed—when traditional engineering firms could not integrate the body into mission requirements—that Playtex, with its intimate exper

Spacesuit Fashioning Apollo The MIT Press

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      Book details

      Publisher MIT Press
      Published 3/18/2011 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN-13 9780262015202
      978-0262015202
      ISBN-10 026201520X
      Also in:
      Technology, Engineering & Agriculture Astronautics

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      How the twenty-one-layer Apollo spacesuit, made by Playtex, was a triumph of intimacy over engineering.

      When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: twenty-one layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of Playtex—a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

      Playtex's spacesuit went up against hard armor-like spacesuits designed by military contractors and favored by NASA's engineers. It was only when those attempts failed—when traditional engineering firms could not integrate the body into mission requirements—that Playtex, with its intimate exper

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