The Shirtsleeve Invention
The Story of a Man and an Idea
Gloria Beasley Lausten
When Bob Beasley was three, he was left alone, locked in a room with a white hot iron. He didn’t know what it was, but for the rest of his life he remembered the fear he felt and his helplessness. Author Gloria Beasley Lausten believes that this is the catalyst that led to The Shirtsleeve Invention.
The Shirtsleeve Invention follows the life of Bob Beasley who was the “Father” of LI-1500, the material that kept the Space Shuttle astronauts in comfortable shirtsleeve weather inside their craft when the temperature was 2400F outside. Robert “Bob” Martin Beasley was the inventor of the Thermal Protection System for the space shuttle, the silica tiles that are on the surface of the orbiters that keep them from burning up while facing the rigors of the earth's atmosphere. His work at Lockheed in Sunnyvale, California was in high temperature ceramics. Beasley had an idea that pure silica could be used for a lightweight insulation instead of heavier ablative materials. The company was not interested in his idea until the start of the shuttle program at NASA. The rest is history.
As the author tells story of her husband, she reveals the events in his personal life that finally led him to Lockheed where the idea of a practical solution for the safe return of men from space finally came to fruition. Raised by a single mother, he had to learn how to take care of himself. He was a poor student but was always interested in how and why things worked. Bob Beasley was not a genius, but was a listener to creative ideas and then followed them. He was proud of his inventions but not of himself as the inventor. Readers can learn more about him as they immerse in The Shirtsleeve Invention.