Sewing for Spaceflight

01One of the reasons I sew is it's therapeutic.

02A lot of times if there's something that's troubling me or I need to think about it, I will design something and sew it.

03It's being one with yourself.

04It's just you and the sewing machine.

05I love that hum sound.

06The hum of the sewing machine.

07It calms me.

08My name is Polly Kane and I make clothes for spacecrafts.

09We need long pants and jackets to keep us warm when we go outside on cold nights.

10In a way, NASA spacecraft do too.

11It's really important to craft protective coverings for the probes that leave Earth to go exploring.

12And the people who create them use tools you might not expect to find around a space center laboratory.

13Sewing machines, tape and scissors.

14Welcome to NASA's Curious Universe.

15Our universe is a wild and wonderful place.

16And in this show, NASA is your tour guide.

17This week's adventure takes us to some very creative places here on planet Earth.

18NASA's thermal blanket labs.

19We're meeting NASA's spacecrafts.

20The technicians whose work helps protect our missions from the harsh environment of space.

21Just as you might visit a tailor to get your pants hemmed or your suit fitted, NASA calls on thermal blanket technicians to custom make the protective shields necessary for space exploration.

22Thermal blanketing is basically like clothes for spacecrafts.

23But it's different.

24The thermal blankets are a multi-layer installation that either protect the spacecraft from heat or cold.

25They're custom made, custom designed.

26The outer layers can be a little bit thicker like aluminum foil.

27The internal layers feel almost like tissue paper.

28That's how thin they are.

29And the netting is no different than what you would make a bridal veil out of.

30It's just space gray.

31And I will show you what they look like.

32If you look at pictures of spacecraft, many of them are covered in what looks like gold foil.

33These are called thermal blankets.

34What a thermal blanket technician is, is a person who works with blankets.

35And the blankets are layers of film.

36Anything that goes in space either needs a special coating or these blankets on it.

37And what I do is design the patterns and everything and make these actual blankets.

38Cut them up and tape them and apply them on instruments, satellites, whatever needed.

39Rarely is it silent in the lab.

40You'll hear hammers punching.

41You'll hear vacuums running.

42You'll hear the sewing machine going.

43This machine was built to go very fast, but what we do, we have to go very slow.

44Like this.

45Those are the voices of thermal blanket technicians.

46Lots of NASA missions would never leave the ground without their creativity and handiwork.

47Thermal blankets protect spacecraft from extreme heat and cold that could damage them.

48These special coverings can also defend NASA missions against collisions with micrometeoroids, very small chunks of rock or metal flying through space.

49The technicians who work at NASA's thermal blanket labs, and for our commercial partners, collaborate with NASA engineers to figure out how to best cover space hardware of all shapes and sizes.

50Each thermal blanket is different, ranging from one layer to 30 or even more.

51The technicians who model, prepare, and design thermal blankets have to be able to craft incredibly precise templates.

52These problem solvers work with their hands and use a variety of materials like netting, capton tape, markers, sewing machines, and even surgical scalpels to execute mission requirements.

53Many of NASA's thermal blanket technicians have a background in the arts, like Paula, who went to fashion school.

54I was born loving sewing because of my mother.

55My mother sews.

56And growing up, my mother used to watch the soap operas.

57And she was a stay-at-home mom, and she loved Young and the Restless.

58And if you know anything about Young and the Restless, especially back in the day, they used to wear real elegant, fancy clothes, suits, that type of thing.

59And my mother would look, and she'd say, she'd look down at me, she'd say, we're going to make that today.

60And then we'd go to the fabric store, we'd pick out the pattern, the fabric, and then she would make it.

61And I was like, I want to do that too.

62So from watching her, and then she taught me how to sew, it just inspired my love of sewing and designing.

63And then from there, I decided to go to school for fashion design.

64There was always a part of her that was fascinated by NASA.

65I always kept up on the latest fashion design stuff because my degree is in fashion design.

66And they had a job under fashion design.

67It said, do you like Star Trek?

68And are you a Trekkie?

69And I was like, uh-oh, because I love Star Trek.

70And I looked at it, and it said something about a thermal blanket technician.

71And I called, and it was here at NASA.

72And I went for the interview, and I was like, oh my gosh, I got behind the gate.

73I walked around, they showed me the facility and what I would be doing, and I got the job.

74It takes people from all kinds of backgrounds and areas of expertise to make a NASA mission possible.

75The range of the backgrounds that people come from for a thermal blanket technician is interesting because mine is sewing and design.

76We have a person who's a graphic artist background.

77We have a person who, she did draperies, that type of thing.

78Their ideas are a little different, which is good.

79You need different here.

80You've got to think out of the box.

81Sometimes you can't always draw everything out, so you have to be able to think about it in your head.

82Like, how will that unfold?

83How's that going to fold up?

84How's that material going to work?

85How are you going to cut it?

86And be able to do it sometimes a little bit quicker than you would want to.

87So you've got to think on your toes.

88Paula's experience in the fashion industry prepared her for a job at NASA.

89But that didn't mean she wasn't nervous at first.

90When I first started here at NASA, I was very nervous my first day.

91I remember it like it was yesterday.

92I was like, oh, please, don't let me mess up on anything.

93I remember saying a prayer.

94And I said, my father always taught me, you know, if you don't know, you ask.

95Don't mess anything up.

96You ask first.

97So I said, as long as I remember, just to say, you know, I'm new.

98And can you help me?

99And that type of thing.

100And it was interesting because when I first came in, the first project, one of the very first projects, was working on the servicing mission for Hubble.

101To me, personally, when I think about NASA, I think about Hubble.

102I mean, I grew up looking at some of those pictures and piquing my interest about space and what's out there.

103So to come in new, my first week I was doing something on Hubble.

104My heart was in my throat again, but I just took my time and the people in the blanket lab were very helpful.

105Paula rose to the challenge and hasn't looked back since.

106I've been here at NASA for 12 years.

107And I thought I was only going to be here for about three.

108I said, oh, I'll give it about three years.

109Then I'll go back home and work at home.

110And I loved it so much, I've stayed.

111I get a special feeling knowing that things that I have made, things that I've touched, are up in space because I think about the fact there's not that many people in the world who have that opportunity.

112And this is something that I basically do every day.

113I just, I feel a little special, you know.

114It's like, yeah, I may not look like it, but you know, I've got stuff up in space.

115Thermal blanket technicians like Paula have helped prep a variety of missions.

116Like the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope and Parker Solar Probe.

117They get to be involved in a range of projects.

118I am a person who does not like to do things over and over again.

119And working here is different almost every day.

120And I think that's what keeps me here.

121Over at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, Lin Pham has been making thermal blankets for almost 20 years.

122Before that, she emigrated from Vietnam and worked as a seamstress in Los Angeles.

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