all right lisa what is what what have you got here uh we have another special spacesuit for you in
the lab today um as you know it was just the the 60th anniversary of alan shepard's flight in may
and this was the second part of the kickstarter with armstrong so we're working on this to put
on display downtown and destination moon part of what made me gasp there
is that i recognize the weathering pattern here because i have pictures of this suit in my
in my archive oh my god the materials are aging maggie who works with me has done a great job
doing some treatment she can outline we're just sort of building out the final mannequin scheme
for it we've done the treatment the gloves helmet and boots will be back on the suit for display a
position like we talked about with armstrong where they look like they're on display in position but
not attached to the suit and using its original uh fasteners and mechanical attachments uh so we can
leave that airflow going and it will be displayed for the first time with its capsule downtown
uh in the same case oh incredible yeah they're being brought back together yes
that will be very exciting i'm actually more excited about that i think so
so um talk to me about ways in which this deteriorating and how you're trying to stop it
well thankfully overall it's in pretty good condition there's the obvious wear
that you're seeing and a lot of people get confused and think that where they see the
brown it's like rusting or something because this looks metallic but that's actually the adhesive
that's been exposed in where the coating has been removed the aluminized coating correct
okay correct so the this aluminized coating is a very thin layer that's over this adhesive which
has just kind of turned brown as it's aged right which is over a substrate that's actually a green
fabric right like the original mark suit correct okay yes so it's really just that coat that's that
uh suit that's been coated overall uh the zippers had a little bit of corrosion just inherently from
years of exposure and where it kind of interacts with the textile so you just go over that with a
little acid and a q-tip a little bit of solvent and then some mechanical action
maybe with a scalpel or something gentle and then coating it with a wax to inhibit future corrosion
the largest issue with this suit was really the neck ring the rubber had just started to shatter
right um areas were missing you know it's meant to be a very elastic seal for when the astronauts
were getting out of the capsules once it had come back in the water they could reach this over their
neckline and prevent water from getting into the suit while they were being taken out of the ocean
so it had meant to be very elastic but unfortunately over time it had just started to
shatter so we were able to rejoin it in some areas and put a lining that would prevent any future
loss as the rubber continues to deteriorate wow so maggie and i have been looking into the coding a
little bit more because there's always been this discrepancy is it really an aluminized coating
on top of the adhesive layer is it integrated into that final coating layer um this one is in very
good condition compared to some glen suit shows a lot more coating loss yeah and so maggie has been
reaching out to the minnesota historical society and other people doing original research on um
trying to decide that so what did you discover in the well so we found the minnesota historical
society has the 3m archives and 3m was actually responsible for producing this fabric okay
and then bf goodrich assembled the suits and so 3m archives revealed that we think that the
same type of technique was used to create this silver lining as the lining they were using to
market towards like firefighting at the time um so it was meant to kind of repel heat
and we were able to find some patents that we think kind of uh show the way that they would
vapor deposit that layer onto the surface um onto a carrier yeah into like a carrier adhesive
and that would be as uh monolithically like on a big bowl of fabric and then
yeah it would be done right prior to assembly and then sent out and assembled
it only just occurred to me and i lit that literally part of the display is
conservation right yeah i didn't realize that until you said we make it so it's not under
its own weight you're trying to make the load on it as light as possible so it lasts as long
right and we look at the suit configuration drawings to find out where those point loads are
uh look at the original astronaut specs like we did with armstrong but a lot of that has
changed with the suit over time from the aging but we can still figure some of that out um
i have a question what is this panel for uh there's actually a cord that goes through there
and runs that length so you could tighten it a little to get better fit um there's a same type
of strapping system running down the legs and then also along the back there's another panel
so yeah and it's kind of sort of like that strap on the back of the glove yeah right tighten it
up these are the external like um the fit the fit check and then that final lacing and um restraint
systems thank you guys so much this is such like a bucket list item this is so beautiful amazing
you