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  Joe Schmitt, spacesuit technician (1916-2017) (Page 1)

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Author Topic:   Joe Schmitt, spacesuit technician (1916-2017)
Robert Pearlman
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posted 09-26-2017 05:27 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Joe Schmitt, NASA's first suit tech and equipment specialist in the crew systems division, died on Monday (Sept. 25), according to Thomas Rochford, son of suit tech Al Rochford, on Facebook. Schmitt was 101.
Sad news today. Learned that my Dad's mentor, Joe Schmitt, passed this morning at the age of 101... Joe was an incredible man and will be missed.
In 1998, Schmitt was interviewed for an oral history, which he subsequently donated to NASA's Oral History Project. Here he describes his preparations for Alan Shepard to become the first American astronaut to fly in space.
...we were getting ready for our first manned space flight which was with Alan Shepard. I had to set up my space suit shop. By the way, I made the first, well not the first, but the first one that we used on a manned space flight — an instrument panel for checking out the space suit. I made that out of a 3-quarter-inch plywood board and I mounted various flow meters and pressure gauges on there and valves of various kinds. I was kind of proud of that. But it is very crude compared to today's instrumentation. We got the job done with it.
Schmitt's work was immortalized by artist Norman Rockwell in a painting that captured him and Rochford suiting up Gus Grissom and John Young for Gemini 3.
...they hired Norman Rockwell, who was an illustrator, to paint a picture of the suiting of the crew. He took a lot of pictures of the crew and I happened to get in on that.

What was interesting to me was the fact that Mr. Rockwell was so precise on exacting data. In the picture that he painted, it had a countdown clock. And he came back a day or so later on the telephone and he said, "Now, when you were suiting the crew up at this particular time, what time would be showing on the countdown clock?" So I figured it up and got it to within a minute or so of what that would be.

Schmitt worked for NASA from 1958 through 1982, first at Langley Research Center in Virginia and then at the Manned Spacecraft Center (later Johnson Space Center) in Houston, Texas. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal in 1981.

onesmallstep
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Wehaveliftoff
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GACspaceguy
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Rick Mulheirn
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Jeff
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David C
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randy
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Jurg Bolli
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Jonnyed
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posted 09-26-2017 08:32 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Jonnyed   Click Here to Email Jonnyed     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Love the Norman Rockwell connection. RIP.

MCroft04
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SpaceAholic
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Ken Havekotte
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Wehaveliftoff
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posted 09-26-2017 10:17 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Wehaveliftoff     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
101, wow. A photo of the same meet up as the Rockwell art:

Ronpur
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Grounded!
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mode1charlie
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Headshot
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101 ... a good life. He will be missed.

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Lasv3
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ColinBurgess
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We have lost an exceptional man and yet another link to our spaceflight past.

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