Anderson in the “White Room” on launch pad 39A during a cargo inspection of hardware carried by the Space Shuttle Orbiter, Atlantis, for STS-117 launched on June 8, 2007. Cargo included S3/S4 Truss elements bound for the International Space Station. Aerospace Fabrication & Materials continues to provide cargo MLI for resupply missions to the [...]

Unifi has recycled more than4 billion plastic bottles into products people wear and use every day. Photos: Unifi Inc. These days, there are many reasons to keep that plastic water bottle out of the trash—especially when it can be turned into recycled fiber that can be made into shirts, blankets, artwork and other [...]

Last week’s blizzard was officially the fourth most powerful snowstorm to hit the Northeast in more than 60 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). On Jan. 20, NASA and NOAA reported their analyses that Earth’s 2015 surface temperatures were the warmest since recordkeeping began in 1880, with 15 of the 16 [...]

Google’s headquarters, the Googleplex, uses SEFAR® Architecture TENARA® Fabric to shade the central plaza of a recent campus expansion. Photo: SEFAR Tech giant Google™ relied on old-school textiles to help shed some shade on its new campus expansion. Google™ is known for its inventiveness, creativity and efficiency. It’s no surprise that the unique [...]

Mine the hidden resources of departing employees with a thoughtful exit interview. When it’s time to hire that new employee, you pull out all the stops: a complete review of duties and responsibilities, a tightly crafted list of desired skills and careful interviews. You make the hire—and hope that you’ve made the right choice. Now [...]

NASA astronaut Tim Kopra is seen floating during a spacewalk on Dec. 21, 2015. NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra released brake handles on crew equipment carts on either side of the space station’s mobile transporter rail car so it could be latched in place ahead of a docking of a Russian cargo [...]

Carnegie has expanded its Acoustic Textile Solutions with two new acoustically absorbent sheers and one new silk-inspired acoustically transparent panel fabric. Deltacoustic and Zetacoustic lightweight sheers have the strength and performance of an opaque sound-absorbing fabric and achieve Noise Reduction Ratings (NRC) up to .6 NRC when draped. Deltacoustic’s soft-hued color pallete has a cotton-like [...]

MY•FR custom yarn-dyed stripes and plaids and Nanuq CWI (Cold Weather Insulation) are two new cotton-rich flame resistant fabric collections. MY•FR fabrics use the brand’s 7.25-ounce AMTEX® PLUS 88 percent cotton/12 percent nylon FR fabric and are ASTM F1506 compliant, NFPA 70E category 2 and NFPA 2112 component recognized. The new line of quilted FR [...]

HUMskin, used to study human-textile interactions, has many of the same physiological properties as human skin. A silky blouse, a cozy sweater, Egyptian cotton sheets—they all feel good to wear or wrap yourself in. There is a science behind how different textiles feel on the body. Now, a European research project called Touché [...]

Built to withstand UV rays, salt spray and heat, BreakWater X™ is a long-lasting, PVC-coated exterior performance fabric for marine enclosures and T-tops. Made up of a base cloth woven from high-tenacity synthetic yarns, it is coated with a combination, or alloy, of advanced polymers modified for use in a marine environment, resulting in a [...]