Eleanor Foraker

Eleanor Foraker (September 2, 1930 – December 8, 2011) was an American seamstress who worked at the International Latex Corporation (ILC) and at NASA. She also stitched together the airbag system that was used to land the Sojourner rover on Mars for the Pathfinder Mission.

Early career Foraker was born on September 2, 1930, in Kenton, Delaware. She worked at ILC Dover for 43 years as a seamstress and later manager on cloth diaper covers sewing projects. From 1968 to 1974, she continued as a supervisor and manager at ILC.

Legacy Nicholas de Monchaux's book, Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo, published in 2011, details the making of the A7L spacesuit and acknowledges the seamstresses' role in its creation. Inspired by the real events of Foraker's life, a children's book entitled The Spacesuit: How a Seamstress Helped Put a Man on the Moon, was published in 2019 which loosely follows her story working on the A7L spacesuit.