Posts: 475 From: Delray Beach Florida USA Registered: Mar 2006
posted 10-28-2011 12:37 PM
Interesting story from CNN with actual names of the ladies who did this often overlooked yet vital work.
"I had something to do that was great. I did something great in my lifetime. I built the suit that went to the moon," 75-year-old Bert Pilkenton told CNN.
For 42 years, Pilkenton, along with some 80 other young women, individually tailored spacesuits for International Latex Corporation (ILC)Dover, which had been part of the Playtex group in the 1960s. Their intimate knowledge of the human body and skills with synthetic materials and body-hugging shapes meant they triumphed over the hard amour-like spacesuits designed by military contractors and favored by NASA's engineers.
"Lower arm, upper arm, torso, setting zippers, the convolutes. I had a part in all of it. Wherever they needed help. We just helped each other," said Ruth Ratledge who still works at ILC Dover as a seamstress, aged 77, having given up on retirement...
garyd2831 Member
Posts: 640 From: Syracuse, New York, USA Registered: Oct 2009
posted 10-28-2011 12:39 PM
Great story. It gets right down into what makes us all proud to be an American!
APG85 Member
Posts: 306 From: Registered: Jan 2008
posted 10-28-2011 09:28 PM
Neat!!!
spacefan JC Member
Posts: 86 From: UK Registered: Jun 2010
posted 10-31-2011 08:07 AM
Are any of the ILC "T O's" in the public domain? Might help someone wanting to make a replica.
music_space Member
Posts: 1179 From: Canada Registered: Jul 2001
posted 10-31-2011 03:25 PM
So in 1962 ILC was part of the Playtex group, right? Maybe Gus Grissom's panty girdle came from Frederica as well!
Cliff Lentz Member
Posts: 655 From: Philadelphia, PA USA Registered: Mar 2002
posted 12-04-2011 01:37 AM
I had the chance to talk to Bill who was featured in the ILC video.
ILC Dover was displaying examples of the various elements of the suits at the National Air and Space Museum in November. He also brought the lunar EVA suit that was in the video. It was really amazing to see the "guts" of the lunar suit.
He told me the story about the seamstresses writing their names on different layers of the suits. The only way they would be discovered was to dissemble the suit and they knew that would never happen!
In our conversation he told me that John Young was the toughest on his suits, always challenging them with extraordinary movements in the different tests they conducted at ILC.
SpaceAholic Member
Posts: 4437 From: Sierra Vista, Arizona Registered: Nov 1999
When Jeanne Wilson was seven, her mother taught her to sew. By age nine, Wilson was designing and making dolls' clothes. Ten years later, in 1969, she was one of several seamstresses at ILC Dover who made Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's spacesuits for the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
"My sister worked at a company called Playtex, which at the time was associated with ILC Dover," says Wilson. "She was making bras and girdles."
posted 10-28-2011 12:37 PM
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