The Shirtsleeve Invention

The Story of a Man and an Idea

This is the story 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. He was also a shirtsleeve inventor, liking to get his hands dirty working on his ideas. The events in his personal life finally led him to Lockheed where the idea of a practical solution for the safe return of men from space finally came to fruition. He 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.