Neil Armstrong's spacesuit made in Delaware
The spacesuit worn by Neil Armstrong during the first crewed lunar landing on July 20, 1969, was manufactured predominantly using materials sourced from Delaware, making the state a quietly essential participant in among the most celebrated achievements in human history. The suit, designated the A7L, was built by ILC Dover, a company headquartered in Dover, Delaware, using materials largely supplied by DuPont, the Wilmington-based chemical giant that has long defined Delaware's industrial identity. When Armstrong took his first steps on the lunar surface, he was encased in a garment that bore the fingerprints — sometimes literally — of Delaware workers, Delaware engineers, and Delaware innovation.
Background: Delaware's Role in the Space Age
Delaware's contribution to American aerospace history is rooted in the state's deep industrial heritage, particularly its long association with advanced materials science. DuPont, founded in Wilmington in 1802, had by the mid-twentieth century become a global leader in synthetic materials, producing innovations such as nylon, Kevlar, and Teflon. These materials would prove indispensable to the demands of space exploration, where equipment must withstand extreme temperature swings, radiation exposure, vacuum conditions, and the physical stress of launch and re-entry.
ILC Dover, originally a division of the International Latex Corporation, was based in the Dover area of Delaware and specialized in flexible, form-fitting products. The company's expertise in working with elastomeric and coated materials made it an unusual but ultimately ideal candidate for the challenge of designing and manufacturing pressure suits capable of keeping human beings alive on the surface of another world. The connection between a manufacturer known for intimate apparel and the pinnacle of aerospace engineering may seem unlikely, but it reflects the broader truth that the Apollo program demanded skills and materials from across the full spectrum of American industry.[1]
The A7L Spacesuit and DuPont Materials
The A7L was the spacesuit used during the Apollo program's lunar surface missions, including Apollo 11, the flight that carried Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon. The suit was a complex, multi-layered garment designed to serve simultaneously as a pressure vessel, a thermal insulator, a micrometeorite shield, and a life-support interface. Each layer served a specific protective function, and the materials chosen for those layers reflected the most advanced textile and chemical engineering available at the time.
DuPont materials featured prominently throughout the suit's construction. The A7L spacesuit worn by Armstrong and Aldrin during their historic moonwalk was made predominantly with DuPont materials, underscoring how central the Delaware company's chemical innovations were to the success of the Apollo 11 mission.[2]
among the most critical of these materials was a fabric called Beta cloth, used for the suit's outermost layer. Beta cloth was made of Teflon-coated glass microfibers, a state-of-the-art material that provided crucial protection against the extreme thermal environment of the lunar surface and the risk of abrasion and tearing.[3] Teflon itself was a DuPont invention, patented in the late 1930s and subsequently developed into a range of industrial and consumer applications. Its use in Beta cloth represented a direct line from DuPont's Wilmington laboratories to the surface of the Moon.
The suit's interior layers included additional synthetic materials engineered for flexibility, breathability, and resistance to pressure differentials. The entire assembly was the product of close collaboration between ILC Dover's fabrication teams and NASA engineers, who together refined the design through years of testing and iteration.
ILC Dover: Manufacturing the Suits
ILC Dover's role was not merely to supply a material or a component but to conceive, design, and manufacture the complete spacesuit assembly. The company won the NASA contract after a competitive process and proceeded to develop a production capability unlike anything previously attempted in the garment industry. Apollo spacesuits were custom-made for each of the astronauts in the program, reflecting the need for a precise fit that would allow adequate mobility while maintaining suit integrity under pressure. For each of the twelve crewed Apollo flights, ILC produced fifteen suits per mission — a testament to the scale and rigor of the manufacturing operation.
Each suit required hundreds of hours of skilled labor, with workers handling exotic materials under strict quality-control protocols. The tolerances involved were extraordinary: a seam that failed, a layer that delaminated, or a zipper that jammed could mean the death of an astronaut. The workers at ILC Dover understood the stakes of their craft and applied corresponding care to every stitch and seal.
The Women Who Sewed the Suits
Among the most significant contributors to the Apollo spacesuit program were the seamstresses employed at ILC Dover, whose precise handiwork translated engineering specifications into functional garments. These workers brought skills honed in the textile and garment industries to bear on among the most demanding sewing challenges ever conceived.
Iona Allen was among the skilled workers at ILC whose contributions are documented in the historical record. Her work included sewing the boots and legs of the Apollo spacesuit worn by Neil Armstrong in 1969 — components that would bear the weight of a human being standing on the surface of the Moon and leave the first human footprints in lunar soil.[4]
The contributions of these workers were for many decades underrecognized in the popular accounts of the Apollo program, which tended to focus on astronauts, engineers, and mission controllers. In more recent years, historians and institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution have worked to document and highlight the essential role played by ILC Dover's sewing staff, many of whom were women, in making the lunar landing possible. The Smithsonian's collections include artifacts and documentation related to this work, helping to preserve the legacy of Delaware's craftswomen in the history of space exploration.
Custom Construction and Scale of Production
The custom nature of the Apollo spacesuit program set it apart from virtually every other form of aerospace manufacturing. Unlike aircraft components or rocket engines, which could be produced in standardized batches and adapted through mechanical adjustment, spacesuits had to conform precisely to the individual human body that would wear them. Measurements were taken repeatedly, fits were assessed through simulations and pressure tests, and suits were modified in response to changes in an astronaut's physical condition.
For each crewed Apollo mission, ILC Dover produced a set of fifteen suits, accounting for the primary suit worn by each crew member on the lunar surface or in the command module, as well as backup suits and training suits that allowed astronauts to practice procedures without risking damage to their flight-ready equipment. This level of production required careful scheduling, materials management, and quality assurance across a large and skilled workforce.
The organizational challenge of producing suits for twelve separate crewed missions — each with its own crew, timeline, and mission-specific requirements — while maintaining the consistent quality necessary for crew safety was a significant manufacturing achievement. It placed ILC Dover at the center of the Apollo program's human factors engineering effort.
Legacy and Recognition
The role played by Delaware in putting Neil Armstrong on the Moon has received growing attention in the decades since the Apollo 11 mission. The fiftieth anniversary of the lunar landing in 2019 prompted renewed coverage of ILC Dover's contributions, with Delaware media and national outlets highlighting how the state's industrial capabilities shaped one of history's most memorable moments.[5]
ILC Dover continues to operate in Delaware and remains a significant manufacturer of flexible protective systems for aerospace, defense, and industrial applications. The company's work on the Apollo program is central to its institutional identity and is prominently featured in its public communications and historical materials. The original Apollo spacesuits, including those worn during the Apollo 11 mission, are preserved in museum collections, most notably at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where they serve as tangible connections to the Delaware workers and materials that made them possible.
DuPont, meanwhile, has undergone significant corporate restructuring in the decades since Apollo, but its legacy as the supplier of critical materials for the Moon landing remains part of Delaware's broader industrial history. The state's identity as a center of chemical innovation is inseparable from the story of the spacesuit that carried humanity to the lunar surface.
Significance to Delaware History
Delaware is a small state, and its contributions to national and international history are not always immediately apparent from its size or population. The Apollo spacesuit program stands as a compelling example of how Delaware's industrial and scientific capabilities have extended far beyond the state's geographic footprint. The suit worn by Neil Armstrong during his moonwalk was not made in a major aerospace hub or a large industrial center, but in a Delaware facility staffed by Delaware workers using materials developed in Delaware laboratories.
That reality gives the story of the Apollo spacesuit particular resonance within the state. When Armstrong declared his famous words upon stepping onto the lunar surface, the moment was shared, in a meaningful sense, by the seamstresses at ILC Dover who had sewn his boots, by the chemists at DuPont who had developed the Teflon-coated fibers protecting his outermost layer, and by the broader community of Delaware workers whose expertise and diligence had made the suit possible.
The spacesuit is now recognized as among the most complex garments ever manufactured, a layered system of protective technologies that represented the convergence of textile craftsmanship, materials science, and aerospace engineering. Delaware's central role in its creation places the state in a select group of places whose contributions to the Apollo program were not merely supportive but foundational.