Kenneth S. Thomas is a second-generation space engineer who was graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s degree from Central Connecticut State University and worked over four decades in industry. In 1989, he became a contractor project engineer (task manager and team leader) on the Shuttle Extravehicular Mobility Unit Program. To develop his expertise in this area, he conducted thousands of hours of unpaid research interviewing scores of early spacesuit designers and engineers from many organizations who were directly involved from the beginning of U.S. spacesuit developments to the present. Mr. Thomas also reviewed documents from the early NASA period to provide further insight and validate interview results. In 1993, he became a consultant to the Space History Department of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) where he gained access to even greater documentation, interview information, and insights. He was a full time spacesuit engineer for 22 years and served as principal investigator or key technical support engineer on Lunar-Mars suit efforts for over 15 years, being an inventor or the sole inventor on four international spacesuit patents. Following the post Shuttle down-turn, he taught engineering part-time at Central Connecticut State University and is now a full-time Quality associate with a local aircraft component manufacturer, an occasional teacher for the NASA Academy at Johnson Space Center and volunteer consultant to NASM.
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