Letters from New Jersey
by Bob Button
JS: My old friend Bob Button, of Jersey City, NJ, is a retired journalist and former public affairs officer for such outfits as NASA, TRW and Grumman. Bob keeps in frequent touch by email; some of his musings about days he and I shared are so interesting that I thought they ought to be read by others. As you will see, Bob usually had a good time getting the job done. Here's another of his "Letters from New Jersey."
Gemini Underwear
Bob Button: Hi, Jim...
Been a little lax lately, I know, and I apologize. Just now got my ol' Beechcraft Musketeer back in the air after a hiatus caused by a mix of maintenance problems, family stuff and terribly hot weather. Got so I could hardly touch the airplane without gettin' blisters, so I hid in my air-conditioned office and rooted around the old photo files, lookin' for somethin' to share...
Well..
As you know, during the Gemini Program I used to brief news people on the spacecraft's control system. In those days, if you had a question about Gemini I was one of the people with the answer. Heck, I coulda flown that sucker myself had they let me.
But sad to say, what I came up with from those particular files was my most embarrassing moment as a Public Affairs Officer in the Sixties. It goes sorta like this:
The folks who designed the pressure suits the astronauts wear in space had a problem. Two guys jammed inside a tiny Gemini spacecraft for any length of time got awfully warm in there.
During flight, the crews were allowed to remove the suits to get a little more comfortable, but that caused yet another problem. Try to imagine two guys enclosed in the front seat of a Volkswagen beetle, attempting to climb out, then back into those big, bulky pressure suits. They're gonna get all worked up and sweat like crazy, right?
So the suit people in Houston came up with, TA DA -- the Constant Wear Garment! The CWG was pretty high-tech back in the Sixties, but truth be told it was nothing more than a fancy set of long johns with plumbing. That's right, plumbing -- plastic tubes sewn into strategic places inside the astronauts' underwear to carry liquid coolant, thereby reducing their body temperature -- or hopefully so.
Needless to say, the media were all excited about this technological breakthrough and demanded to have the Constant Wear Garment modeled for their cameras. It was my job to talk one of the suit folk into posing for the photo op. I was surprised when I got unusually adamant opposition from all of them. They were usually very cooperative, but nary a one was willing to pose in the astronauts' Gemini underwear. I talked 'til I was blue in the face, I begged, even appealed to their patriotism. "It's your duty," I explained. "It's terribly important for the nation that the American people see everything related to the man-in-space program," I added. (You could practically hear the Star-Spangled Banner playin' in the background.)
"Well, Button," said the head suit guy. "If it's that important, why don't you pose in the goldang thing?"  Don't ask me why I agreed to do it, but I did, and we scheduled a press photo shoot for that very afternoon.
And that's when I learned that those long johns were so sheer you could see right through 'em. Oh my God! I ran back into the suitin' up place and retrieved my Jockey shorts to avoid bein' the first PAO to provide X-rated press material. Very sheer: In the photo you can clearly see I'm wearin' underwear under my underwear.
But it was still pretty humiliatin' -- that photo ran in newspapers all over the world. Folks I knew from every corner of the globe sent me clippings with little snide remarks scribbled on 'em. "See you finally found your niche at NASA," was one of the more memorable ones.
I have a feelin' I'm in for another round of underwear fan mail..
Seeya..
bb
Editor's Note:Once again, we're reminded that heroes are made, not born, in every pursuit..even modeling.
For the record, here's a real astronaut making history while wearing the underwear that Bob struggled so hard to demonstrate:
 Ed White, First American spacewalk, Gemini 5, 1965.
Bob Button and his well-loved Beechcraft Musketeer:
For another story by Bob Button, Click Here.
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