all right Lisa this I know what this is Alan Eustace is suit that he used to
jump from the stratosphere Alan and Ryan have got to actually brought a replica
that Ryan built right a valence suit to my shop but this is the real thing this
is the real thing can you talk to me about what was involved in bringing this
into the museum sure so Alan used to propose that we bring it in and make a
dynamic display of it flying which I was totally against it first but we but we
came to an agreement that it would balance preservation and display needs
and it would be how the public really pictured his his jump and this is shown
in the re-entry flight position we tossed up a bunch of different positions
he agreed to everything he worked very closely with us to get everything right
the only thing we disagreed upon was there's a lot of marks on the suit from
where he crashed tested it three times or he actually went up I'm including the
scuff mark from his head hitting the inside of the bubble helmet right and we
said we've left all that because that's part of its history you can see there's
some tears a lot of these are new materials so we weren't worried about
them from a preservation standpoint like we are the historical spacesuits but
thinking along the same lines we made a very structurally supportive mannequin
we used his measurements we had modeled the whole thing in a computer oh wow so
it was a completely custom mannequin yes it was our new design we wanted to use
an aluminum skeleton we had been using other materials in the past that were
just too heavy yeah and then we covered that in our inert materials we actually
made a jump suit over that because the pressure bladder in here which is
polyurethane is a very sticky yes so we had to slide the mannequin in and get it
to fit and then put the suit back together cause you know it's in two
halves and building mannequins and space suits is my challenge because you have
to build them inside the suit you can address a space suit on a mannequin or
any kind of person as you know this is a difficulty I have it just in my shop
with my costume space suit so it's very it's very challenging and
we want everything to be supported in the right way this whole suit and
balloon apparatus weighs about 500 pounds that's a mom but down to like the
duct tape that he wanted us to take off we said no we're leaving it on we
preserve duct tape we preserve all the markings of pencil markings people wrote
on his equipment yeah all in there for people to see in the future so now I'm
curious if there's knowledge you have from having worked on the Apollo era and
later era suits if there are aspects even though these are new materials and
this is a fairly recent suit built by ILC Dover where the knowledge that you
gained that helped you preserve this better for the long term well our
research shows that low relative humidity is the key so we try to take
everything to a really lower level not only for like corrosion but for the off
gassing of all these polymers okay I mean over time you really need that we
cannot put our collections at an inert environment as people have suggested
because our collections are used and we have to access them and people research
them right right Alan Eustace came back with a handle that he forgot to put on
so I would have had to open the case again and install that so I know that's
like best for some things but just not for what we do here and all of that
knowledge comes from our study and research but mostly the spacesuit was
sort of set up the same way so you know you have your pressure bladder you know
you have your restraint system and you have your cover and all of them sort of
operate that way so for me I always look at this trifold
operation that they do and you know what that purpose does it serve and what
parts are those and then sort of go from there when I'm working at them when you
talk about the off gassing of the polymers how does that affect can off
gassing from some of the polymers in here affect others and deteriorate that
I can so the case materials are all very inert sure and so we don't want any of
that mixing and then our mannequin has to be from very inert materials we don't
try to incorporate plastics foams or anything into our glass not resin and
ventilation is a big key so all of our cases are now being ventilated because
when they build up in here they will impact or overtime editing it encourages
the plasticizers to keep coming out if you're not built if you're not bringing
them away from the material so if you lock something up in your closet
like a plastic toy you would have mad when you're little or something you know
that buildup in that environment will actually accelerate other things
happening so that must be a trick to both make sure air is moving through the
case but also make sure the relative humidity is extremely low right two
things are and exactly so those are things so we do a cool temperature not
cold because I can stiffen rubbers and things but those are sort of the key
things that we found through our research that sort of help preserve the
only material that does not need to be ventilated is polyvinyl chloride once
you build up the environment of whatever's coming off of it it actually
stops it from continuing that process so we have learned in storage and display
that we need to isolate those from any other plastic and then use that
technique that's awesome it's a beautiful display I know that
it's wringing it up was a pain in the ass but man it looks gorgeous
it was just against my nature I don't want to pop but yeah it's a beautiful
display he was thrilled with it people love it the public loves it and I mean
that's who we're here to please yeah it's pretty dynamic totally amazing