Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo

By: Nicholas de Monchaux

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot

Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex: 21 layers of fabric, each with a distinct yet interrelated function, custom-sewn for them by seamstresses whose usual work was fashioning bras and girdles. This book is the story of that spacesuit. It is a story of the triumph over the military-industrial complex by the International Latex Corporation, best known by its consumer brand of "Playtex" - a victory of elegant softness over engineered hardness, of adaptation over cybernetics.

Playtex's spacesuit went up against hard armor-like spacesuits designed by military contractors and favored by NASA's engineers. It was only when those attempts failed - when traditional engineering firms could not integrate the body into mission requirements - that Playtex, with its intimate expertise, got the job.

In Spacesuit, Nicholas de Monchaux tells the story of the 21-layer spacesuit in 21 chapters addressing 21 topics relevant to the suit, the body, and the technology of the 20th century. He touches, among other things, on 18th-century androids, Christian Dior's New Look, Atlas missiles, cybernetics and cyborgs, latex, JFK's carefully cultivated image, the CBS lunar broadcast soundstage, NASA's Mission Control, and the applications of Apollo-style engineering to city planning. The 21-layer spacesuit, de Monchaux argues, offers an object lesson. It tells us about redundancy and interdependence and about the distinctions between natural and man-made complexity; it teaches us to know the virtues of adaptation and to see the future as a set of possibilities rather than a scripted scenario.

©2011 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2014 Audible Inc.

I liked the technical parts.

I liked it. I think it could have been shorter if they stuck to just the technical info.

Analysis of the human side of making a space suite

Not what I thought it would be but it turns out to be a pretty good book.. This author analyzes the human nature and politics of how it came to be that the A7-L suit was even made let slone used for Apollo. I do recommend this book for Apollo enthusiasts even though it does not really get into the nuts and bolts of the suite. Well, it does, but not in the conventional way.

Interesting

Alternated between fascinated for truly wonderful stories and bored to tears. Would appreciate version of technical works and the rest.

Very different & unique take on manned SpaceFlight

I learned about as much about the history of fashion and a few other related topics as I did about the advertised one, interested takes on many levels.

Has a lot, missing a few things

Like a more academically dense and daylong 99% Invisible episode, the thoughts and conclusions and births of traditions that have become just another part of life today, from a time where the birth of new traditions was just another part of life.

What’s missing: a PDF companion with all the images and figures. You get embarrassingly lost hearing text read to you that was clearly designed to be set next to the image being discussed.

What’s strange: each layer (chapter) can’t quite decide if it’s self-contained or linear with its neighbors. They reference each other in both directions and contain redundant information, but are labeled in sequence and at least seem to be trying to build up some overall story. The lesson: just don’t be confused when a chapter briefly recaps something to you which you thought you’d heard a whole chapter on an hour ago. That’s exactly what’s happening, and you didn’t miss or misunderstand anything.

Like a giant collection of "did you know" facts

Any additional comments?

Great collection of facts. Things to tend to seemingly go off track quite quickly, not appearing to be related to the overall topic but they are brought back in an interesting way. The last hour or so is a little unnecessary and once the book covers the return of the astronauts you will not be missing out on much by skipping the rest.

Supple Triumphs Over Hard

We are all so inured to the image of the Apollo 11 astronauts in their puffy marshmallow-man space suits, that we forget what sensational achievements those suits were. This is the story of how the elegant, but ultimately impractical designs of military industry were defeated by Playtex, makers of women’s undergarments, the people who knew how to fashion fit.

Anyone looking for the irony in history here’s your audiobook. It’s filled with moments of deep moral inquiry juxtaposed with the absurd.

These twenty-one essays, fascinating and funny, describe the suit and its evolution from fashion, manufacture, the absurd things expected of earth-evolved human bodies in outer space, the space race, and more.

Bronson Pinchot catches all the dry humor in the book and gives a truly entertaining reading of the many passages like the following,

“Once agreed upon, the only problem came with sizing the most intimate part of the suit assembly, the urinary collection device (UCD) that slid over the astronaut’s penis. After an “incident” with the first astronaut fitted for the device, the UCD’s designations were changed from ‘Small, Medium, Large’ to ‘Large, Extra Large,’ and ‘Extra-Extra Large.’”

Well, now we know.

fascinating story but author frequently gets lost

Is there anything you would change about this book?

the author frequently gets lost on such issues as "Man as cyborg" or "Apollo's impact on urban planning" The story about how the seamstresses of Playtex sewed a 21 fabric layer suit without using pins is amazing to anyone who has tried to sew two pieces of fabric together. That NASA needed a concrete record of the craftsmanship involved in making a suit showed that craftsmanship is often an undefinable entity.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

acceptable

Was Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo worth the listening time?

yes

Any additional comments?

the author is apparently an architectural critic or urban planner and his background frequently intrudes on an otherwise fascinating story.

Ok, though off topic at times

There is too much use of vocal intonation and the story doesn't help this by repeatedly reaching so far into off topic areas as to be disorientating. It couldn't keep a viewpoint straight to help the reader see the authors points. Is this supposed to be the view of ILC? NASA? MIT? The other companies? The astronauts?

Author ably cuts to chase

Author correctly and knowledgeably describes the complexity which were an integral part of any suc project. Instead of making this a diatribe, HE skillfully describes the inherent APPARENT disorder from which complex, multifactoral processes are born, lending another well described description of what many call chaos theory