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Season 5, Episode 6: Talking Space Suits with Historian Bill Ayrey, Part 3
Welcome to Space 3D!
Two well respected aerospace organizations had experience making high altitude pressure suits, but only a couple of engineers from a relatively unknown company known as ILC Dover had set their sights set on developing a true space suit with high mobility for the Apollo program.
In his book, Lunar Outfitters: Making the Apollo Space Suit, Bill Ayrey tells the people story of ILC and documents the technical details of the various models of the Apollo suit, including pre-Apollo suits.
Bill retired in May 2019 from ILC Dover after 41 years of service. He was responsible for managing the test laboratories for the company where the space suits made for the Space Shuttle than the International Space Station were tested prior to delivery. He also represented the company as their historian.
In part 3 of our interview with Bill Ayrey, we’ll start out with discussing the curiosity of Space Shuttle “rescue balls” and then explore some other interesting anecdotes- including assisting the sound engineer for the movie First Man to record actual sounds of an Apollo suit and his work assisting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with preservation efforts for Neil Armstrong’s Apollo suit. We’ll conclude this episode by turning to Bill’s work on space suits at the close of his career with ILC Dover, with comments on where the future lies with new space suits, and what might be Elon Musk’s role in driving innovation in design.
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By Eleanor O'RangersWelcome to Space 3D!
Two well respected aerospace organizations had experience making high altitude pressure suits, but only a couple of engineers from a relatively unknown company known as ILC Dover had set their sights set on developing a true space suit with high mobility for the Apollo program.
In his book, Lunar Outfitters: Making the Apollo Space Suit, Bill Ayrey tells the people story of ILC and documents the technical details of the various models of the Apollo suit, including pre-Apollo suits.
Bill retired in May 2019 from ILC Dover after 41 years of service. He was responsible for managing the test laboratories for the company where the space suits made for the Space Shuttle than the International Space Station were tested prior to delivery. He also represented the company as their historian.
In part 3 of our interview with Bill Ayrey, we’ll start out with discussing the curiosity of Space Shuttle “rescue balls” and then explore some other interesting anecdotes- including assisting the sound engineer for the movie First Man to record actual sounds of an Apollo suit and his work assisting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with preservation efforts for Neil Armstrong’s Apollo suit. We’ll conclude this episode by turning to Bill’s work on space suits at the close of his career with ILC Dover, with comments on where the future lies with new space suits, and what might be Elon Musk’s role in driving innovation in design.