posted 05-07-2008 02:15 PM               

The inquirer asks, "A woman by the name of Alice King Chatham was a graduate in fine arts from the Dayton Art Institute who had a facility in sculpting animals – she went to work at the Wright Patterson Aerospace Medical Lab, where she developed the suit and mask for a dog – she then designed "suits and helmets" for rhesus monkeys...

Any chance you have any information on her and whether or not she stitched these monkey suits? Or, who actually did?"

There is nothing in the various Wright-Patt archives on her. I also think the information isn't exactly right because, to my knowledge, the US never used dogs as space flight test subject. The labs at Wright-Patt did use dogs in decompression tests early on, but I haven't seen suits for them.

If you have any info, I'll pass it along.

Cheers,

posted 05-07-2008 05:35 PM               

Unfortunately there's very little about the apparel worn by these animal subjects in our book, but there are photographs of monkeys and even a St. Bernard dog wearing early protective pressure and parachuting garments and a mask that could very well have been individually tailored by that woman. Sorry not to have been much help.

posted 05-08-2008 01:24 PM               

Cheers,