When Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon on July 20, 1969, all that was standing between him and the vacuum of space that would kill him immediately was his spacesuit. The A7L, as Letters of Note notes, had to “provide, amongst other things, the following: a safe internal pressure; breathable oxygen; a regulated temperature; shielding from radiation; protection from micrometeorites, and a communications system. In addition, the suit’s eleven layers needed to provide ample levels of comfort and mobility so as to make it usable.”
It did all that and for that, Neil Armstrong was thankful. He penned a note to the team that designed the A7L, sending it in 1994, 25 years after the monumental moment.
Read it after the jump.
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2010.
