Outer Space & Underwear

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

African American History And Culture, American History, Exhibits, Dc, History, Science, Sidedoor, History Of The World, Society & Culture, The Smithsonian, Washington, Natural History, Pop Culture, Smithsonian, Exhibit, Tony Cohn, Zoo, National Museum, Air And Space, National Zoo, Art19, Museum, Postal Museum

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2020

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

In the Venn diagram of life, it’s hard to imagine what spacecraft and women’s underwear might have in common. And that’s probably what NASA engineers thought back in 1962 when they asked a handful of companies to design a spacesuit that would keep a man alive and mobile on the moon. Nobody counted on the International Latex Corporation, whose commercial brand, Playtex, was known for its bras and girdles. But lingerie, and the expert seamstresses who sewed it, played a critical role in those first well-supported steps on the moon.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Lizzy Peabody. So how recently did you return from space?
0:27.0	I landed just this past October, so a little over four months ago.
0:31.6	Nick Haig is an astronaut.
0:33.2	He just spent 203 days on the International Space Station.
0:37.2	That's almost seven months.
0:38.8	I'm up here on this ship zipping through space.
0:44.0	It's a pretty magical experience.
0:46.0	If you're like me, you've probably imagined what it might feel like to be in space,
0:51.0	floating in the void on a tether looking down on Earth.
0:55.0	But in my imagination, I never really thought about what I would be wearing.
0:59.0	When Nick Haig steps outside the space station, the only thing between him and the vacuum of space
1:06.0	is his space suit.
1:07.8	I want to kind of get inside that suit.
1:10.2	I have a hard time imagining what that feels like.
1:13.0	It's strange when you first start training in one,
1:17.0	it doesn't take but a little bit and you realize,
1:20.0	hey, this isn't just clothes, this is a tool, you know, it's a spacecraft for one person. So what does a
1:26.3	wearable spacecraft feel like? I kind of figured it would feel like one of those
1:30.2	over-stuffed snow suits kids wattle around in.
1:33.2	Haig says it is pretty snug.
1:35.4	You know, I squeeze myself into one
1:37.6	and it embraces you like a real heavy thick coat.
	...

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