She Taught NASA Engineers How To Sew

[Subdeacon Joe]

Eleanor ("Ellie") Foraker (September 2, 1930 – December 8, 2011)was an American seamstress who worked at the International Latex Corporation (ILC) and for NASA who contracted ILC. She left the Playtex division of ILC Dover in 1964 and then worked on underground inflatable oil tanks and gas masks to aid the development of the A7L spacesuit for the Apollo 11 mission.She also stitched together the airbag system that was used to land the Sojourner rover on Mars for the Pathfinder Mission.

For the Apollo missions, one of Foraker's tasks in her supervising role was managing the use of sewing pins by the seamstresses.Each seamstress was given a set of pins with different colored heads so that Foraker could track who worked on each suit and prevent pin pokes to the suits' behinds. Foraker also taught, along with other seamstresses that worked in the ILC's Playtex division, NASA engineers how to sew and suggested improvements to the spacesuits.

Foraker had no days off or vacations for three years and ended up suffering two nervous breakdowns during this time.
Photo-An employee of ILC Industries sews layers of aluminized plastic together during the assembly of a spacesuit to be used in NASA’s Apollo space program, Dover, Delaware, 1968. 

Photo: Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

More-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Forake

 

[Sedalia Dave]

Awfully high tech materials being sewn on a decidedly low tech machine.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

4 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

Awfully high tech materials being sewn on a decidedly low tech machine.

Claw hammers are low tech, too, but almost all the buildings going up anywhere today are still hammered together with them.

 

Don't give up on obsolete technology nor those who can still use it effectively.  Why, I'll bet if you looked hard enough you could find some folks still using lever action rifles and single action six guns.   

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Playtex division of ILC was chosen because of the excellent work they did on ladies undergarments.

 

 

[Calamity Kris]

11 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

Awfully high tech materials being sewn on a decidedly low tech machine.

 

Not necessarily.  That is an industrial machine.  The body style has changed little through the years.  Additionally, they don't need all the fancy stitches the household machines have.  I imagine that machine goes forward and that's all.  For that particular application, that is all you need.