Inside the Apollo Space Suit

Delaware Public Archives hosts event exploring innovation.

With the 45th anniversary of America’s landing on the moon coming soon, the Delaware Public Archives will host a program on July 5 about the development of the early space suit at International Latex Corporation (ILC). This program, presented by Bill Ayrey, will explain the Apollo space suit and the impact that it had on the success of the Apollo program, in addition to discussing the Apollo space suit, Ayrey will describe the development of the Space Shuttle and Space Station space suits. The presentation will also include information about ILC Dover’s creation of the airbags that landed the rovers on Mars.  Employed at ILC since 1977, Ayrey is the quality test laboratory manager and company historian for ILC Dover in Frederica. As the laboratory manager, he is responsible for testing advanced materials for many product lines. Ayrey oversees the manned testing of the space suits and the testing of all space suit parts before delivery to NASA.  He has provided training to Smithsonian docents on the details of the space suits in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum collection. Ayrey will also provide assistance as NASA forms a working group to determine the best practice for displaying Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 suit in 2017. The program is free. For more, call Tom Summers at 744-5047 or e-mail thomas.summers@state.de.us

 

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