Sew Sisters: The Untold Story of NASA Seamstresses

Join LILRC as we welcome Jean Wright to discuss her career as a NASA Aerospace Composite Tech, also known as a NASA seamstress. 

Jean worked with the United Space Alliance at the Thermal Protection System Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. One of 18 seamstresses in this critical role, Jean and her co-workers dubbed their group “The Sew Sisters,” using machines and hand stitching to build, create and repair thermal protection flight hardware and parachutes. Wright would go on to work on the Endeavor, Atlantis and Discovery space shuttle missions. She also worked on test parachutes and aft-skirt blankets for the Orion spacecraft.

Now retired, Jean remains involved with NASA as a Docent for the Shuttle Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center. She is a member of NASA’s Speakers Bureau, representing the organization at civic, professional, educational and public events. She has been a keynote speaker at the MQX Quilt Festival in 2018, Women’s History Month at KSCVC in 2018, Family Day at the Udvar-Hazy National Air & Space Museum in 2016, the International Quilt Festival with Astronaut Karen Nyberg and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. One of her life’s biggest thrills was being asked by Mark Armstrong to cut and prepare for auction, pieces of historic muslin fabric from the Wright Brothers 1903 Flyer that his father, Neil Armstrong, carried to the moon aboard the Apollo 11 Lunar Module.

A hardcover picture book about Jean's life is being published this fall. Entitled Sew Sister:The Untold Story of Jean Wright and NASA's Seamstresses (Tilbury House Publishers October 3, 2023), it is written by Elise Matich and is the first in a series of picture book biographies by the author that explore the lives of figures who have been overlooked or overshadowed in their fields.

This program is being presented in cooperation with NASA's Solar System Ambassador program. For more information on the program, visit Events | Solar System Ambassadors – NASA Solar System Exploration.

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Code of Conduct

For questions, please email Eliscia Cirrone, ecirrone@lilrc.org.

Professional Development Hours: 1 (.1 CEUs)

Program Recording: Yes

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