When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon for the first time, we don't actually see his face. We see his moonsuit. That moonsuit — in effect — is Neil Armstrong; an inseparable part of this historic moment. While the spacesuit kept him alive to tell that story in his own words, what went unnoticed is the extraordinary team that stitched it together. In the final episode of Season 1 of Teamistry, host Gabriela Cowperthwaite shines a light on the team of seamstresses and engineers whose meticulous craftwork, creativity, and dedication helped us realize the dream of putting a man on the moon. In this episode, Joanne Thompson and Jean Wilson — two of last surviving seamstresses who worked on the Apollo 11 moonsuits — talk about the intricate seams, needlework, and personal sacrifices that went into outfitting Neil Armstrong. We hear from Homer Reihm, one of the engineers who worked with the seamstresses, and Bill Ayrey, former historian at ILC Dover and Nicholas de Monchaux, author of 'Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo', who take us through the pivotal moments of this monumental task. Also, Janet Ferl, the current design engineering manager at ILC Dover, tells us how the legacy of dedication and teamwork on the Apollo 11 moonsuit continues to inspire the company today. Teamistry is an original podcast from Atlassian. For more on the series, go to www.atlassian.com/podcast.
Joanne Thompson has a special relationship with the moon.
I love to look at the moon.
Just look at it.
I even had a dream one time that I went to the moon, and, you know when the moon looks just like a piece of mist up there?
That's how it was in my dream.
I got there and I said, where am I supposed to put my feet?
Even though Joanne's only been to the moon in her dreams, something she made has been there.
Something that actually made traveling to the moon possible.
Joanne, along with a team of seamstresses in the 1960s, including Jean Wilson, sewed together the spacesuits worn by the Apollo eleven astronauts.
The person that we were making the suit for, that astronaut who was a human being, his life was in our hands.
If we didn't make that suit right, that's how important it was.
Jean and Joanna and a whole group of seamstresses were part of a team that included engineers and scientists working on something where the stakes were literally life and death.
It was the most difficult challenge these women had ever faced.
At a time when women were rarely heard or empowered.
It was an era of prejudice and chauvinism.
And without built in pragmatism and humility that some of the engineers had, there wouldn't have been anyone listening as closely to the seamstresses as was necessary.
I'm Gabriella Cowperthwaite, and this is team mystery, an original podcast from Atlassian.
This show is all about the chemistry of teams and what happens when people are so open to new ideas of working, innovating, and expressing themselves together.
They end up doing something amazing.
I remember looking up in the night sky when I was very little and thinking the moon was this abstract yellow circle, like something out of a storybook.