Spacesuit
Fashioning Apollo
$83.11
- Paperback
380 pages
- Release Date
18 March 2011
Summary
How the twenty-one-layer Apollo spacesuit, made by Playtex, was a triumph of intimacy over engineering. When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar surface in July of 1969, they wore spacesuits made by Playtex- twenty-one 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…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262015202 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 026201520X |
| Author: | Nicholas de Monchaux |
| Publisher: | MIT Press Ltd |
| Imprint: | MIT Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 380 |
| Release Date: | 18 March 2011 |
| Weight: | 1.16kg |
| Dimensions: | 229mm x 178mm x 23mm |
| Series: | The MIT Press |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
The most delightful and memorable new book I read last year was ‘Spacesuit,’ by Nicholas de Monchaux … [I]t offers a wonderful David & Goliath story about the triumph of Oldenburg-like soft objects over phallic, rigid ones, and of hard-working seamstresses over hard-nosed engineers.
—The New YorkerSpacesuit pays worthy homage to that often overlooked but essential technology for human space exploration.
—The Space ReviewThe density of ideas and connections is intoxicating. De Monchaux swings masterfully between subjects, teasing out unexpected connections and spotting the seeds of contemporary life that were planted by the space race.
—IconDe Monchaux has an ear for a good story and affection for the historical characters…Spacesuit offers a broad and creative appraisal of that suit’s many contexts, encouraging readers to consider technology as design, shaped by the circumstances of its time, unfailingly and elegantly layered and crafted to serve a purpose.
—NatureDe Monchaux’s thorough and artful history of the American spacesuit takes readers at a leisurely pace through the past, from the first air travel (via balloon) through fashions of the mid-20th century and manned missions into outer space.
—Publishers WeeklySpacesuit bursts with dinner-party fodder: Did you know that the U.S. government’s documentation of the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests created a worldwide film shortage? Or that the Apollo mission’s computer-backup system was crafted into a binary pattern that was then physically woven into ropes? And that only seamstresses could be called upon to do this work properly?
—Los Angeles Review of BooksAbout The Author
Nicholas de Monchaux
Nicholas de Monchaux is Professor and Head of Architecture at MIT and a partner in the architecture practice modem. He is the author of Local Code- 3,659 Proposals about Data, Design, and the Nature of Cities. His work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Lisbon Architecture Triennial, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, SFMOMA, and the Chicago MCA. He is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.
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