Page 160 - MY STORY

natural result of the anodizing process. NASA was

horrified at our simple solution! They wanted the
astronauts to feel like they were “at home” and felt that
the interior of the Skylab should be painted in pleasing

colors to ease the stress of long habitation periods in
space.

Therefore they hired an interior decorating firm (I’ve
forgotten their name) to oversee the color renditions of
the living and working quarters. So our job went from the

simple to the complex. After receiving millions of dollars
of NASA funds, we embarked on engineering

assessments of interior paints that:

1) would not combust in pure oxygen and
2) would not emit any noxious VOC’s in a reduced

pressure, pure oxygen environment.

We had to derive new test methods to evaluate the wide
array of different paints to meet these requirements. After
several months and a lot of money, we found the “Eureka”

paint that met all of NASA’s requirements. After all this
effort the winner was — you won’t believe this — it was
Sears Best Acrylic Interior Paint (made by DeSoto Paint

Co.).