Archinect - News 2024-11-24T23:16:55-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/146436111/the-man-behind-the-iconic-apollo-11-space-suits The man behind the iconic Apollo 11 space suits. Orhan Ayyüce 2016-01-24T00:23:00-05:00 >2022-03-16T09:10:02-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/kx/kxlfgfztbr6sq3rz.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>Sixty years after the Wright Brothers put man in the air, scientists and engineers were grappling with the next major challenge: putting a man in space - and keeping him alive there. As an engineering challenge, it was the most extreme imaginable. Their solution was a rocket and the most complicated piece of personal protection equipment man has ever known: the space suit.</p></em><br /><br /><p>Al Jazeera's Caroline Radnofsky set out to explore the legacy of her grandfather, the man behind the iconic Apollo 11 space suits.&#8203;</p><p><img alt="" src="http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2015/10/14/3bfc85bf3a4943569ac99b5c3f8e0d0c_18.jpg"></p><p>I felt like I knew Grandpa best not through the glowing endorsements, but through the anecdotes that were sometimes least flattering: how he'd get so excited about an idea that he'd call his colleagues in the middle of the night, or burst in on meetings. How when he got frustrated, he'd hack away with a survival machete at a block of wood he kept in his office.&#8203;</p><p><img alt="" src="http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2015/10/24/e609fe531eb24ca0b1cb936cb6de3b2d_6.gif"></p>