Hi.

I'm Mark Greer, Executive Director of the Akron Bicentennial.

And in partnership with PBS Western Reserve, we're pleased to present, a Forgotten History Forum series.

The Forgotten History forums will explore aspects of Akron's history that while critical to our development, are not often discussed.

Throughout this yearlong series will highlight seminal points in our history, some undiscovered and others which still challenge us today.

Topics will include women trailblazers in Akron's history, the development of the New Akron History Anthology published by the University of Akron Press, Akron's Native American History, The History of Deaf Rubber Workers, The Impact of Urban Renewal, particularly on Akron's Black community, and the history of the African American Church, among others.

On behalf of the Akron Bicentennial, we hope you enjoy our Forgotten History Forum series.

Good evening, and welcome to our next bicentennial Forgotten History Forum series on the spacesuits of Akron.

We are really excited about this forum.

When we're talking about Akron space flight legacy and the rich history that we have to tell, it's such a compelling story and we're so honored to have Matt Polner here with us.

And how many of you came here today from a state not named Ohio?

There we go.

Okay.

So for our non Buckeyes here, welcome.

And thank you for driving all the way from Saint Louis and beyond.

We're really looking forward to tonight's presentation.

A few items that we want to mention.

All of you should have a three by five index card.

These are your question cards.

So we will be having a Q&A portion.

We want you to write down your questions for Matt.

Especially ones that will really stump him.

So write down those questions for Matt and about midway through the presentation, Akron 200 staff will be going up and down the side aisles.

Here we have Jasina Chapman, we have Rose Vance-Grom.

I just realized I never said my name either.

My name is Mark Greer.

And we'll go and we'll collect all of the question cards.

Please write legibly, because anything we can't read, we can't pass on.

So we'll be doing that as well as— Please remember, we've got bicentennial merchandise out in the lobby.

And if you didn't already, Matt has brought a bunch of really interesting, artifacts that are on display outside in the lobby.

So make sure you look at those before you leave.

Also, of course, make sure that you join us at the Akron History Center Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m to 2 p.m.

Again, looking forward to our evening's bicentennial Forgotten History Forum and with that, please help us welcome Matt Polmer.

- Thank you Mark.

Thank you to the entire Akron Bicentennial for having me.

Thank you for coming, everybody.

My name is Matt, and today we're going to be talking about the spacesuits that were created by B. F. Goodrich right here in Akron.

So what is a spacesuit?

Well, first, we have to discuss what a pressure suit is.

A pressure suit is a protective garment designed to maintain a safe environment around a person's body when exposed to low pressure at high altitudes.

So as you go higher in the air, the air gets thinner.

And having a protective ensemble is important to maintain your own safety.

A spacesuit is a pressure suit designed to be used in space.

So that spacesuits doing a ton of different things.

It's supplying oxygen for breathing in an environment that may not have it, such as the vacuum of space.

It's maintaining a stable pressure inside of that suit.

It's providing a comfortable temperature.

Space can be really hot or really cold, and that suit's going to provide that comfort.

It's going to protect against radiation and micrometeorite impacts.

And it's also going to allow for communication.

And that's with other astronauts or it's with Mission Control down on the ground.

So the challenge with building a really good spacesuit is providing as much mobility and dexterity as possible while still maintaining that safe, pressurized environment.

So if you can imagine a human shaped balloon and you're inside that balloon and you're trying to bend while that balloon's pressurized, it can be really difficult.

So designing a spacesuit that has convoults and restraint systems and other ways to allow for easier bending is a challenge that has stumped engineers for decades now.

So the very first pressure suit that B.F.

Goodrich ever made was for an aviator named Wiley Post.

So Post wanted to fly really high into the stratosphere, about 50,000ft in the air with his Lockheed Vega, The Winnie Mae.

And he went to B.F.

Goodrich, his aviation research department in Los Angeles, asking for help creating a pressure suit to do that.

That team created the very first pressure suit made by B.F.

Goodrich, and Wiley Post brought that pressure suit over to right field in Dayton, Ohio, to be tested.

And while they were pressurized the suit, some sealing tape failed, and caused the suit to fail.

And Wiley Post brought that suit over to B.F.

Goodrich in Akron, Ohio.

And that's when he met an engineer named Russell Colley.

Russell Colley had worked at B.F.

Goodrich for a couple years at that point.

And over his career, he was involved with a lot of different things.

Everything from deicing on planes to tools called rivnuts, and many other things.

And Russell Colley, like most people at B.F.

Goodrich, had little to no experience with working with pressure suits or any sort of textiles like that.

So he took the original forms that were from the first suit, the original patterns, and created a second suit using the same helmet.

Now, what he did an account for is at this point, Wiley Post had gained a couple pounds since trying on that first suit.

And when they did the fitting of that second suit, he actually got stuck inside and had to be cut out of his second pressure suit.

So Russell Colley went back to the drawing board and decided to create an all new pressure suit for Wiley Post.

And he created this suit that you see up here, with a new helmet.

And this suit was the very first practical pressure suit ever used.

So Wiley Post flew this pressure suit inside the Winnie Mae on several flights.

Over the next year or so.

And during that time, The Winnie Mae started having a lot of mechanical issues.

And he ended up retiring that plane.

And then soon after Wiley Post, along with Will Rogers was in a plane crash, where he lost his life.

And with the loss of Wiley Post, B.F.

Goodrich ended their pressure suit work for the first time.

So a couple of years later, during World War Two, the Army was interested in producing pressure suits.

And again, at this point, pressure suits were pretty new.

This wasn't technology that was easily available.

So the Army recruited a couple different companies to start producing prototype pressure suits for them.

And they ultimately consolidated this into Project MX-117.

During World War two.

And many different companies produced suits, including several here in the Akron area.

But B.F.

Goodrich, with their experience with Wiley Post suit, was about a year ahead of all of the other companies in terms of production.

This suit that you see up here is one of the suits that they ultimately came up with.

This is called the XH-5, stands for the Experimental High Altitude, and then it's the fifth suit in the series.

And it gets the nickname the “Tomato Worm” suit because of those tomato worm shaped convolutes.

The story is, is that Russell Colley was in his garden one day, and he noticed that tomato worms were able to bend at 90 degree angles without changing their internal diameter very much.

Which is exactly what you want for a pressure suit to make it easier to bend.

So he took that and was able to adapt those same ideas into a pressure suit.

Even with this technology, B.F.

Goodrich and all the other companies were not able to create a pressure suit that was meeting the standards that the Army was looking for.

And they ultimately decided to focus on other endeavors and cancel Project MX-117 in 1943.

And B.F.

Goodrich at that point more or less ended their pressure suit work for the second time.

Now, several years after that around 1949, the Navy started getting introduced, to pressure suits.

They had helped test the suits for the Army, a couple of years prior.

And they wanted their own pressure suits to fly their planes at high altitudes.

So, B.F.

Goodrich once again picked up where they left off.

And engineers like Russell Colley, Don Schuck, Carol Krupp, they started working on these new suit designs.

Some of the earlier suits, like the first one, the Model 8-X, the Model 1, the Model 1-A and the Model 2 were very similar to the Army suits that had been made prior.

Then we get into suits like, you see on the right hand side there, that's the Model-H.

And the Navy was talking about how this is no longer just a get me down suit, right?

It's not just a suit for emergencies inside the cockpit where you can safely land.

This was basically what Russell Colley was trying to create with Wiley Post’s suit before.

A suit that you can actually use for the duration of a mission in a plane.

They kept going through different models, and they get to the Model-L, and the Model-L was being tested in environments of up to 70,000ft in the air.

And the Navy was saying for the first time that they had a suit that could actually be used as a space suit.

So they keep progressing through these different suits until they get to the Model-S.

And the Model-S is put into production as the Mark-1.

You can see we have the Mark 1, 2, 3 and 4 here.

And this is B.F.

Goodrich playing around with how much dexterity and mobility can we get out of these suits while balancing how lightweight the suits are.

And ultimately they get to the Mark IV on the right hand side.

And this is a really solid pressure suit.

Here's some photos of them showing off that mobility in the suits.

These photos are from Philadelphia, where they were playing a game of baseball in those Mark IV’s showing off just how much movement they're able to get out of them and how comfortable they are to wear.

They tested them on large towers that could accelerate the suit up to 19 GS, showing that these, Mark IV pressure suits could handle really high G-forces.

They were testing out how comfortable you can stay temperature wise, with photos, like, there on the right, inside of those big blocks of ice.

So the Mark IIV pressure suit was a pretty solid suit for its time.

And America overall was feeling pretty technologically advanced, especially as we were entering the Cold War against the Soviets.

And then the Soviets launched this.

Does anyone know what this is?

Sputnik.

Yeah.

So the Soviet Union launches the very first satellite into space.

And this thing doesn't do much except for just send some beeps back, but it terrifies the United States.

You know, if the Soviets can put this over our heads, orbiting over America, what's stopping them from putting nuclear weapons into space as well?

So on July 29th, 1958, we found NASA.

So just before this, we launched our own satellite, Explorer 1.

And then we started up our own civilian space agency.

So we know that the Soviets are planning on putting humans in space for the first time with their Vostok program, and we want to beat them to the punch.

So on October 7th of 1958, Project Mercury is approved by NASA.

And this is going to be our very first human spaceflight program.

After that, we start recruiting military test pilots, people who function really well under pressure and know how to operate aircraft, and will be well equipped to operate our spacecraft.

And on April 9th of 1959, we're introduced to the Mercury Seven.

Do any of you guys growing up hearing about the Mercury Seven?

We have John Glenn, Alan Shepard... Yeah.

So these become really household names after a while, these seven astronauts become celebrities.

We have Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton.

And these are America's very first astronauts.

And we're planning on putting these guys into space for the very first time.

But we have to do it pretty quickly.

The Soviets have really well advanced into their Vostok program.

And the easiest way to accomplish this for us is taking technology that's already off the shelf and using it to our advantage.

So for our rockets, we're going to use the Mercury-Redstone and Atlas, which are based off of ballistic missiles that we already were using in our military.

And on top of those missiles, we were going to strap the Mercury spacecraft that was developed by McDonnell Aircraft in Saint Louis, Missouri.

And the idea is, is that these spacecrafts would be pressurized.

But in case something happens inside of that spacecraft during a mission, we're going to need a spacesuit that can pressurize and keep those astronauts safe until we can safely splashdown in the ocean.

So to do that, we recruit some companies that are already working on pressure suits for evaluation by NASA.

B.F.

Goodrich has the Navy Mark IV pressure suit that's already well-established.

The David Clark Company is the company of choice by the Air Force and they're producing suits like the MC-2.

And then the International Latex Corporation is a newer player on the game, and they're developing suits like the one called the SPD-117.

And NASA evaluates these suits to see which one fits the needs of Project Mercury the best.

You can see up here we have a modified Mark IV pressure suit that B.F.

Goodrich changed to fit the needs of spaceflight.

So some of the things they change is the design of the helmet to better suit the needs.

And also they added an aluminum coating on the outside of that nylon to give it a silver color.

Now part of this is so that they have insulation properties.

They can better reflect thermal radiation to keep those astronauts cool, but also astronauts at that point were brand new, and the public only knew what they saw of spacemen in different, science fiction topics.

And any time you saw that, a lot of the time they were silver colored.

And a good portion of this is to get the public's buy in for Project Mercury, making those spacemen in real life match what they already were familiar with.

And after heavy evaluation of those suits, B.F.

Goodrich is awarded the contract on July 22nd, 1959.

So Akron, Ohio was going to produce the very first American spacesuits.

So how do you do that?

Well, this is the B.F.

Goodrich complex it’s located on South Main Street, and it's a series of buildings.

And on the very far bottom right there is Building 41, and Building 41 was the northernmost building, in the B.F.

Goodrich Complex.

And this building was built in the 1920s and had produced everything from rubber bands to hoses to aviation products.

And for quite some time, it had been used to produce the pressure suits that we talked about.

And they were also going to use this same building to produce America's first spacesuits.

So here's part of the team that made that happen.

Lots of the people in this photo are from Department 1811.

And this is the B.F.

Goodrich department that was in charge of pressure suit engineering.

So in the far top left corner we have Carl Effler, he was technical manager over department 1811.

We have some really prominent engineers in this photo.

We have Paul Frecka, Don Ewing, Mel Case, Ray Anderson, names that would make these spacesuits possible.

And then front and center in the bow tie, we have Russell Colley, who, after about 30 years or so, was still making suits for B.F.

Goodrich and was the lead engineer in department 1811 under Carl Effler.

Here’s Russell Colley working in some of those spaces, working on some of the designs for those suits.

And just to show you how far we've come, here's a photo of Russell Colley with the very first Wiley Post helmet that was made in Los Angeles back in 1934, next to a mercury spacesuit helmet.

And that's only about 30 years of development in pressure suits and spacesuits.

So Department 1811 produced the engineering side of things, while Department 1823 did the manufacturing of the suits.

And this was in Building 41 and was overseen by general foreman, Richard Shaw.

And this is his team with different areas that they would produce the different elements of the suits in.

And that's not an easy task.

Each of these suits is made up of hundreds of individual components that all need to be built and tested correctly in order to function the way they're supposed to.

So for the first American spacesuits, we started off at B.F.

Goodrich, producing these forms of the Mercury Seven astronauts.

And off of these forms, the seamstresses were able to produce patterns in order to assemble the suit.

So each individual component of those fabrics was produced off of those forms.

This is some photos of them producing the gloves for the spacesuits.

Gloves are incredibly important when you're building a pressure suit or spacesuit because you need a ton of dexterity, in order to be able to handle things with your hands while you're on a space mission.

So these gloves were super important, and they had restraint systems to prevent ballooning of those gloves so that they work the best for those astronauts.

Here's one of the seamstresses finishing up an almost completed Mercury spacesuit.

And then once they had a completed spacesuit, they had a ton of testing that had to go into it.

So this is engineer Ray Anderson testing Alan Shepard’s spacesuit, the first American in space.

Starting in October of 1959, the Mercury astronauts started to come to Akron for fittings of their suits to test, are they comfortable?

Are there any pinch points that need to be addressed?

Are the suits functioning correctly?

And one of the earliest times was on October 28th, when astronauts Gus Grissom and John Glenn, came to Akron.

So Gus Grissom is the astronaut that's on the left and right.

On the left there, you have B.F.

Goodrich Products Manager, Wayne Galloway.

And on the right hand side, you have engineers Paul Frecka, Don Ewing and Ray Anderson working with Gus during that time.

And then in the center, we have John Glenn, who most of you guys probably know later became a senator for Ohio.

So they would evaluate those suits throughout October and November of 1959 to make sure everything looks good.

Once they had those suits, it was time to test them in space.

Between 1961 and 1963, six Mercury missions were flown and this was the first six times we ever put Americans into space.

The first American astronaut was Alan Shepard, and Alan Shepard came from the Navy, so he was already super familiar with the Navy Mark IV pressure suit.

So since the Mercury space suit was based off of that earlier suit, he was already pretty familiar with it.

And this is a picture of him with Russell Colley and Wayne Galloway during early testing of those suits.

Now, as part of Alan Shepard's flight, he would be conducting a suborbital mission.

And that means that they were essentially just going up and down, they were not going to orbit the Earth.

And the entire mission would last about 15.5 minutes.

Here's some more photos of him, with Russell Colley and team working here in Akron.

And then on May 5th of 1961, it was time to launch the mission.

Now, this is the first time we were launching a human into space from the United States, and they wanted to take the time to work out any issues on the pad.

Alan Shepard was sitting inside of his Mercury spacecraft for several hours waiting to launch.

So back at B.F.

Goodrich here in Akron, they were celebrating a successful mission.

Not only were they putting out tons of advertisements, saying that they had sent a man into space with a B.F.

Goodrich spacesuit, but also they did this.

There's an old Navy tradition called a clean sweep, where you tie a flag a pole with a broom up to show that you swept your enemies at sea.

And that's what they did for Alan Shepard here in Akron.

They tied that broom up and let him know that they were doing that.

Next up was Gus Grissom.

Gus Grissom was from the Air Force, and he was going to launch on a very similar mission to Alan Shepard.

NASA at that point wanted to prove that their missions were successful, truly, because of their own success, not just from flukes.

So Gus Grissom was going to fly on a very similar flight profile as Alan Shepard, a 15.5 minute suborbital mission.

And the mission went really well, and he was able to splash back down into the ocean with his spacecraft.

But as he was waiting for his recovery helicopter to pick up his spacecraft out of the ocean, the explosive bolts on the hatch flew open.

We now know that that was caused by electrostatic charge from the recovery helicopter, but at that point, we didn't know what was causing it.

So because of that, the spacecraft started taking on water really quickly and started sinking.

The recovery helicopter is trying to pick this spacecraft up out of the ocean, and it's overweight at this point.

The helicopter can't do that.

Meanwhile, Gus Grissom jumps out of the spacecraft and is swimming out in the ocean with his Mercury spacesuit.

And in the process, forgot to close an oxygen inlet valve that's towards his stomach.

And as a result, his spacesuit started taking on water.

And he very slowly started to drown.

So focusing on Gus Grissom, they decided to cut the line for the spacecraft and pick up Gus from the water.

And that spacecraft actually sat on the bottom of the ocean until 1999 when a team recovered it, and it's now on display at the Cosmosphere in Kansas.

This was essentially the only time that there were major complications with a mercury spacesuit during a mission.

So here are some photos of him before that mission.

This is him again with Wayne Galloway on the left hand side.

And with engineers, Paul Frecka, Carl Effler, Don Ewing and Ray Anderson on the right there.

And here's Sam with his spacecraft, Liberty Bell seven.

Again, we launch with a Mercury-Redstone rocket.

This is the lesser of the two powerful rockets that we use during Project Mercury.

And for later missions, we would need something a little bit more powerful.

And that started with our next mission with John Glenn.

John Glenn was going to do something that Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom hadn't done, that he was going to travel to 17,500 miles an hour to orbit the Earth three times, go all the way around.

This is a picture of Wayne Galloway, Carl Effler, and Russell Colley.

during, John Glenn's time in Akron, getting suit fitted.

So because we were launching so much faster, about 17,500 miles an hour, we needed a more powerful rocket.

And we switched to the Mercury Atlas Rocket to launch him on top of.

This is a picture from the pilot observation camera as he became the first American to orbit the Earth, again in his Mercury spacesuit.

Meanwhile, while that mission was about to launch, B.F.

Goodrich had a presence down at Cape Canaveral, where the mission was launching from.

This is B.F.

Goodrich Products Manager, Wayne Galloway down, at Cape Canaveral with one of the Mercury spacesuits doing press interviews to show off the space suit that was made here in Akron.

So not only were the Mercury Seven astronauts world famous, but also the suits by this point were incredibly iconic to the public.

Now, following John Glenn’s flight, we had Scott Carpenter fly the same profile.

So he also flew three orbits around the Earth to check that, that success was valid.

This is a picture of Henry Goodrich with his suit under testing when it was pressurized to make sure that it wasn't excessively leaking.

Here's a picture of him just before launch.

And you can see why it was so important for B.F.

Goodrich to produce a space suit that was for fitted to that astronaut.

They have so little room inside of these Mercury spacecraft that John Glenn once said that you don't get into your Mercury spacecraft, you put it on.

So it's really tight fitting space, that the astronaut had to squeeze into once he had that spacesuit on.

Next up is Wally Schirra, who has become the fifth American in space.

And he doubled the amount of orbits that John Glenn and Scott Carpenter did.

This is a picture of him with Russell Colley here in Akron.

And not only were they using these spacesuits for the missions, they were using them extensively during training.

So here's a picture of Wally Schirra next to one of the two Mercury procedures trainers, where if you're familiar with World War Two, they had link trainers at the time.

It's very similar.

It allowed them to practice and simulate what it would be like during a Mercury mission, without ever leaving the ground and having those spacesuits on allowed them to practice what it would be like during those missions, not only wearing the spacesuits, but also in case they had to be pressurized in the case of an emergency.

And then the last Mercury mission was for Gordan Cooper.

And Gordon Cooper would not only orbit the Earth, he would orbit the Earth 22 times, becoming the first American to spend a full day in space.

This is a picture again of him with Russell Colley and Carl Effler here in Akron.

And for Gordon Cooper's suit, they changed the most things out of the suit.

Every single spacesuit that flew in space, they iterated on just a little bit each time to continually improve them.

So a couple examples would be Gus Grissom had the widow's peak on his helmet removed and also had new locking rings for his gloves.

John Glenn had lights and the fingertips of his gloves so that he could more accurately see things in the darkness of space.

Wally Schirra had new microphones put in, that were more lightweight and convenient from a company called Plantronics.

So for Gordon Cooper's last mission, they were doing a lot of development of the advanced mercury suit at the time, and they changed a lot of things to improve the suit.

The helmet changed quite a bit.

The old helmets had something called a pneumatic visor, that had a little pocket of air that pressed against the visor to pressurize it.

This had what's called a mechanical visor, that applied mechanical pressure, to press in on the visor.

They also changed the shoulders a lot.

And this is something that B.F.

Goodrich would continue to work on over the next couple of years with many other spacesuits, is how can we increase and maximize the amount of mobility that we were giving those astronauts, with the broad range of motion that shoulders have.

And there's also many other things they changed, like integrated boots for the first time up until now, and had basically been a onesie on the bottom where your feet were and you just slipped a boot over the Mercury spacesuit.

So you may notice that we have the Mercury Seven, and we only named six Mercury missions.

And that's because the final Mercury astronaut, Deke Slayton, was grounded in March of 1962 due to a heart condition.

So Deke Slayton never flew in Project Mercury, but eventually was cleared for spaceflight and flew on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.

About a decade and a half later.

So we're gonna take a step back for a second, right?

We're just accomplishing Alan Shepard spaceflight, right?

He was in space for 15.5 minutes.

We had put one person in space, and President John F. Kennedy says, that by the end of the decade, we are going to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth.

It was an insane accomplishment, that required about 4% of the US budget and about 400,000 of America's brightest individuals.

But you can't go from just sending somebody up and down into space for 15.5 minutes to landing people on the moon in a decade.

You have tons of different things that you need to accomplish before you get to that point.

That's things like spacewalks, where we actually have the astronauts climb out of the spacecraft and float around in their spacesuit.

You need long duration missions where we were sending astronauts for up to 14 days of spaceflight at a time.

You have rendezvous and docking, where we launch two spacecrafts separately, had them meet up with each other and connect to each other.

All of these things were going to be necessary in order for Apollo to be successful.

And that's where Project Gemini comes in.

Gemini, because, twins, we would launch two astronauts at a time now instead of just one by himself.

And Gemini, because at that point, a lot of these engineers were living in places like Texas and Florida and had a pretty thick southern accent.

So the majority of NASA at the time was incorrectly pronouncing it Gemini.

So as a result of this, they needed a new space suit.

B.F.

Goodrich had just finished producing the spacesuits for Project Mercury, and they wanted to do the same with Project Gemini.

They had several space suits that they produced over that time, and ultimately they come up with this spacesuit, this is called the G2G.

It stands for Gemini, two because it's the second design in the series and G for Goodrich.

If you guys haven't seen it already, we have a helmet from this space suit out in the hallway, so definitely go check it out after you're done here.

This space suit was evaluated along with another company called the David Clark Company, who, you may remember, was one of the competitors that was being evaluated for Mercury earlier on.

Now, B.F.

Goodrich was primarily producing suits for the Navy, while David Clark Company was producing suits primarily for the Air Force.

And both of these suits were heavily evaluated for what fit the needs of Project Gemini the best.

And in June of 1963, they decided that David Clark Company has the better suit for their needs.

And B.F.

Goodrich loses the contract to produce the suits for Project Gemini.

But they're not out of the race yet, we still have the Apollo program coming up.

And B.F.

Goodrich wanted to be the company to produce the space suits to walk on the moon just a couple years later.

Now, in 1962, NASA had some requests out for companies to submit proposals for different spacesuits that could be used.

And they decided they really like the space suit that's made by a company called, International Latex Corporation in Delaware.

And they really like the life support and the management style, from another company called Hamilton Standard.

And they take these two companies that were part of two separate proposals, and they created a shotgun wedding between the two.

And these guys have a terrible working relationship.

They really struggled to get along working under each other.

And in 1965, Hamilton Standard gets approval from NASA to replace International Latex Corporation with B.F.

Goodrich as their suit provider.

These guys produce a couple of suits together.

Including this suit, which is called the AX6H.

And in 1965, they have another contest, another evaluation, to decide which suit would be on the moon.

This suit is being considered from Hamilton Standard and B.F.

Goodrich.

There's another suit that's being evaluated from International Latex Corporation and another suit that's being evaluated from David Clark Company.

And after a heavy evaluation of these suits in July of 1965, they choose International Latex Corporation to produce the suits that would be used on the moon.

This is a very famous picture of Buzz Aldrin, on the surface of the moon from Apollo 11, and this is in a suit called the A7L, that was produced by International Latex Corporation.

But, even though B.F.

Goodrich lost the contract, they still were producing different parts.

So if you were to take this suit and open it and look at the zipper on the inside, that pressure sealing zipper was still made by B.F.

Goodrich here in Akron.

On top of that, International Latex Corporation started to recruit a bunch of engineers from B.F.

Goodrich like Mel Case, Don Wohlgemuth, Bob Wise and several others, that they used that experience that came from B.F.

Goodrich to use in their own spacesuits that they were creating.

Now Hamilton Standard and B.F.

Goodrich were working on another project together, and that was for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory.

This was a space station like structure that the Air Force was putting together using old, equipment from Project Gemini.

And they were putting together a suit, as a team as well.

And B.F.

Goodrich comes up with this suit, this is the demonstration suit that's created for the Manned Orbiting Laboratory.

And after they produce this suit, Hamilton Standard decides that they want to focus on their own internal projects for suits and part ways with B.F.

Goodrich on that project.

Now, B.F.

Goodrich is still producing pressure suits for the Navy, right?

We have the Navy Mark IV pressure suit that's still being produced here in Akron.

And B.F.

Goodrich starts to develop the Mark V. And that's an evolved version of the Mark IV that the Navy decides never to put into full operation.

Now, unfortunately, at this point, when you're producing pressure suits and space suits, you kind of need somebody to purchase those pressure suits and space suits and I don't, I don't know about any of you guys, I'm not in the market anytime soon.

So it's difficult when you start to lose these contracts.

And in 1969, B.F.

Goodrich decides to shut down Department 1811, that was the pressure suit engineering department.

And soon after they shut down Department 1823 that was doing the manufacturing.

And as a result of that and a couple other factors such as pressure suit work being consolidated under the Air Force by the Department of Defense in 1972, which favored, David Clark Company suits, and also Russell Colley leaving to work at NASA, among several other factors.

Because of all of this, B.F.

Goodrich leaves the pressure suit and space suit industry for the third and final time.

So what's Akron spaceflight legacy today?

What remains of all of this?

Well, B.F.

Goodrich space suits are in museums across the country.

And just as they were iconic back in the 1960s, they remain as iconic today.

People love seeing these in aerospace museums today and imagining what it was like back in the 1960s to send humans into space for the very first time.

But these spacesuits were designed for use in space.

They were not designed for the rigors of time.

And these suits are starting to deteriorate pretty rapidly.

A lot of the rubbers that were used in spacesuits are starting to crack.

And in the case of the mercury space suit, the aluminized coating on the outside that gives it that silver color, it was vapor deposited on there.

and it's starting to flake off of these suits, which is revealing the brown and orange, adhesive that's underneath.

So prioritizing the conservation of these spacesuits has become a really important aspect of air and space museums today.

This is Alan Shepard’s spacesuit at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian.

And just a couple of years ago, they raised over $200,000 for a full conservation process on this suit so that it still exists for generations to come.

What happened to the building that these suits were made in?

Well, building 41 continue to be used by B.F.

Goodrich, but by the 1980’s was in pretty rough shape and in 1983, B.F.

Goodrich sells off the building.

And there's several different proposals on what to do with the building over the years.

And ultimately in 1994, Paul Tell re redevelopes this with a $22 million, restoration of this building.

And today, Building 41 exists as the AES building just down the street.

It's that big brick building that says Akron Beacon Journal across the top of it.

And with so many B.F.

Goodrich buildings and Project Mercury sites being demolished in recent years, we're incredibly fortunate that we still have a building like this that was essentially the birthplace of American space suits.

So what happened to B.F.

Goodrich itself?

Well, in 1988, B.F.

Goodrich sells off its tire business to Michelin.

So you can still buy a B.F.

Goodrich tire today, but it's not produced by a B.F.

Goodrich, it's now a brand name produced under Michelin.

In 2001, they decide to sell off their chemicals business to focus on aerospace.

And this is sold to a group of private investors that after a while forms into Lubrizol.

And B.F.

Goodrich had other facilities outside of Akron, such as their research center up in Brecksville, where a lot of the patterning suits for— patterning work for the suits was done.

And Lubrizol actually still uses that same site today.

And then ultimately in 2012, B.F.

Goodrich, which by that point was going by Goodrich Corporation, was sold to UTC and is today part of Collins Aerospace.

Funny enough, Collins Aerospace was formed through many, many different companies, including Hamilton Standard that B.F.

Goodrich had worked with on those suits all those years ago.

But even with that all gone, Akron still has a ton of things going on in aerospace.

So Goodyear and Smart Tire Company, which both have a presence here in Akron, are working on tires to be used on the lunar surface.

We have not set foot on the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972, and that was largely because we focused on the space shuttle program that wasn't able to go to the moon.

It was designed for low Earth orbit.

Now that the space shuttle program was retired in 2011, we have the Artemis program, where in coming years, we'll be landing humans on the moon for the first time in decades and transportation on the lunar surface will be incredibly important once we have a foothold.

And companies here in Akron will make that possible.

Thomarios is a company that's right around the corner in Copley, and this is a company that's restoring historic rockets for display purposes.

One of the more recent projects they worked on was restoring a Mercury-Atlas rocket, including with a replica Mercury spacecraft like you see up here.

And how fitting is it that decades after the Mercury space suits were made here in Akron were restoring the same rockets that were used in that program just a couple miles away.

The University of Akron NASA robotics team is building autonomous robots that could lead to innovations that are used on the lunar surface in the future.

It's very exciting work.

And also, Space shuttle astronaut Judy Resnik remains a really celebrated part of Akron history, most recently with the Akron Bicentennial, and the Akron Rubber Ducks.

I hope everybody got their bobbleheads.

And then, of course, we have NASA John Glenn Research Center and numerous dozens of other aerospace companies operating throughout Northeast Ohio.

So even with the Mercury spacesuits being a thing of the past, Akron is still a vibrant area For NASA and aerospace.

So as we move into the future with all of those aerospace industries building up here in the Akron area, it's important to remember that even before any rocket at all had reached space, the foundations of human spaceflight were being laid right here in Akron.

All right.

Thank you guys for submitting your questions.

I'll go ahead and answer a couple of them now to the best of my ability.

Why didn't the suit's giant zippers leak when pressurized?

Great question.

Zippers were a big industry for B.F.

Goodrich actually going back many decades before the Mercury spacesuits were made.

The technical term for a zipper is actually, a slide fastener and the term zipper actually came from B.F.

Goodrich.

So if you're familiar with the Akron Zips, that's where they get their name from.

Yeah, yeah.

Pressure sealing zippers are very specialized because a normal zipper on a normal application, if you tried to pressurize it, that air is going right through the seal, right?

So Akron had an entire— B.F.

Goodrich had an entirely separate department just for pressure sealing zippers.

And a lot of this work was done by early engineers like Carol (unknown) back in the 40s and 50s, trying to figure all of this out.

And basically how it works is there's two pieces of rubber or some other material, that when you close a zipper, those two pieces are pushed together to form an airtight bond that can be used on pressurized things like spacesuits.

So great question.

Who makes modern day spacesuits today?

Also great question.

So B.F.

Goodrich has been out of the industry for quite some time, but there's still a couple companies that are producing spacesuits.

One of the main ones is International Latex Corporation.

They produced the Apollo spacesuits that were used on the moon, so the A7L and the A7LB.

They then produced the spacesuits that were used for Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that followed.

And then once the space Shuttle program started, they produced the Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuits that were used on the Space Shuttle and on the International Space Station.

So as we speak today, international Space Station spacesuits are up in space orbiting above our heads that were made by International Latex Corporation.

There's also a lot of other companies that are producing suits.

A company called Axiom, that's newer to the game is producing spacesuits for the Artemis program.

And they'll be walking on the moon in the coming years with that suit.

David Clark Company is still in the business today.

They still do produce some space suits, mostly what's called launch entry suits.

Which are suits that you wear when you're launching into space and when you're landing for your protection.

They're also the main supplier of pressure suits today.

So that's pretty much a monopoly on their part that outside of space suits, David Clark Company in Massachusetts is producing virtually all of the pressure suits for our military today.

So there's quite a few companies even Hamilton Sander, which became Hamilton Sandstrom, which is now part of Collins Aerospace.

Even Collins Aerospace is still, has been working on space suits in the last couple of years for use.

So it's interesting that the Hamilton side of things still continued working on space suits that led into Collins Aerospace.

But B.F.

Goodrich is also part of Collins Aerospace today.

And because they ended that work in the 60s and 70s at B.F.

Goodrich, very little of that technology actually still is used at Collins Aerospace today.

That's a great question.

There are quite a few women pictured at B.F.

Goodrich.

What were their roles?

Only seamstresses.

Yes.

Yeah.

So for the most part, Department 1811 did not have any women.

It is the 1950s and 60s.

It's very much, pretty misogynistic in terms of who can do engineering roles.

For the most part, seamstresses were employed by Department 1824 or 1823 that did the manufacturing in Building 41 under Richard Shaw.

So they were very heavily involved with the patterning process, with sewing, with the final assembly of those suits.

I've heard some stories that when the astronauts came, just because of the culture that was in place back in the 60s, it was very much a don't speak unless you're spoken to, when the astronauts are in there for the seamstresses.

So they played an incredibly important role in developing and building these spacesuits.

Can you tell us more about the museum where you brought the artifacts in the lobby?

Yeah.

So I'm on the board of directors for the Space Museum in Grissom Center in Saint Louis, just south of Saint Louis in Bonne Terre, Missouri.

And we have tons of different artifacts.

So some of those in the lobby came from the museum.

Some of them came from my personal outreach collection.

Some of them came from some of the families that came today.

So thank you to everyone for for bringing those out.

Really appreciate it.

If you guys haven't had a second to look at those artifacts, definitely take a look.

Everything that's underneath the display case was from B.F.

Goodrich.

Everything that's out on the table is from other manufacturers over the years.

So some really cool artifacts.

Some of them have flown in space.

So definitely, definitely check them out.

Were any materials in the suits toxic?

Not really.

So most of the suit materials were made out of synthetic materials.

So to my knowledge there wasn't anything that was necessarily toxic in there.

Just because it was used so close to the body.

NASA did use quite a bit of toxic materials in many other applications.

For example, Project Gemini, we talked about the rocket fuel on that was hydrazine, which is a hypergolic fuel.

So that is super toxic to humans.

But as far as I'm aware, there was no toxic materials in the suits.

If anybody knows otherwise, I’d love to talk about it.

What do you think is in the future for American space exploration?

Yeah.

Great question.

We talked a little bit about the Artemis program.

China has already committed to working with Russia to land on the moon by the end of the decade.

So we not only have a program in place where we will be landing humans on the moon for the first time in decades, but we're also potentially entering a second space race right now for the first time since the 60s, where we could be seeing not only people landing on the moon over the next decade, but potentially, setting up moon bases.

The US government just announced, you may have seen in the moon that they want to put a nuclear reactor on the moon.

So there's lots of different things going on in the lunar surface coming up.

We also have a lot of commercial activities happening for the first time.

Traditionally, NASA would hire these different contractors to produce items for their use in NASA government programs.

Now we have things like the Commercial Crew Program, where we are funding these companies to send our astronauts into space for us, along with many other different commercial programs that's going on.

So there's tons of different avenues that these companies could go, including several companies like SpaceX that want to land on Mars within the next couple of years.

It's a very exciting time in spaceflight, a lot of people consider it the second golden age of spaceflight.

We're also losing a lot of the people from the earlier years.

So, you may know that some of the people in the audience are from the families of the B.F.

Goodrich engineers.

And that's because as far as I can tell, there’s not a single B.F.

Goodrich suit engineer still living.

We also just lost astronaut Jim Lovell last week.

He was a Gemini and Apollo astronaut, but a lot of people don’t know that he was the last surviving of the Mercury Astronaut candidates.

There were 32 candidates that they whittled down to, and he was the last surviving at 97 years old.

So I think it's really important that we remember the accomplishments of these people in the past, but also recognize that we're an incredibly exciting time for spaceflight.

And I'm looking forward to seeing what, what happens in the coming years.

Where are you from Matt, you seem to know a lot about Akron.

I am originally born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida, about an hour north of Miami.

So I grew up seeing a lot of spaceflight.

Cape Canaveral, which is about two hours north.

I went to college at University of South Florida in Tampa, and I've moved around quite a bit over the years, including living in Akron for several years up until recently, actually just came back.

But, yeah, I have lived in Akron for quite a few years.

Really enjoyed my time here, and I think for all of this, if you're interested in spacesuit history, there's not a better place to live, right?

That's all the questions so, thank you guys for your time.

- Thanks so much, Matt.

That was such an interesting presentation.

And for all of the Akronites here, I am sure you learned something that you did not walk in here knowing.

So, again, our thanks to Matt Polner.

Such an engaging but an exciting history.

We hope that you enjoyed this Forgotten History Forum and that you learned something new and exciting about Akron and the people who shaped it.

If you're interested in watching more from this series, or attending a Future Forum event, please visit Akron 200.org or pbswesternreserve.org.

Thanks for watching and celebrating Akron’s Bicentennial