Alice King Chatham (March 28, 1908 – July 8, 1989) was an American sculptor who worked for the United States Air Force, NASA, and their contractors to design helmets, oxygen masks and other personal protective equipment. Equipment she designed was used both on humans and on a variety of animal test subjects. Career Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Alice King was a graduate of the Dayton Art Institute. In 1942, she was contacted by officials at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) near Dayton, Ohio to help design breathing masks for pilots. They sought her out because they wanted someone with a sculpture background to be involved with the design. She began work at the Aero Medical Laboratory at WPAFB, where she helped design and build the first successful pressurized breath masks for pilots operating planes above . The pressurized mask was important to keep pilots from passing out at high altitude. Her work improved upon an earlier design by Dr. James P. Henry of the University of California that had not met the specifications needed by the Air Force. The mask she devised included pressurized air bladders around the ears that allowed pilots to operate at for 30 minutes. This represented a significant improvement over Henry's mask, which lacked the ear bladders and caused pilots pain after only 15 minutes at . X-plane projects King was assigned to work on the X-1 project that resulted in Chuck Yeager's accomplishment of the first transsonic flight. She further improved the helmet design to use rigid plexiglass around the ears; this design was found to be effective at a simulated altitude of . These improvements were incorporated into the 1946 Army model S-1 flight suits built by the David Clark Company. Although several sources have reported that Chuck Yeager was wearing this S-1 suit during his first record-setting first transsonic flight, Yeager said that he wore only a regular flight suit and not a pressure suit for that effort; King Chatham's exact contributions materials used in the X-plane program are unclear. Space program Following her work for the Air Force, King Chatham went on to work for NASA and its contractor the Douglas Aircraft Company on projects for the space program. She designed the oxygen mask and harness used by Albert II, the rhesus monkey who was the first monkey and first mammal in space, during his June 14, 1949 flight. She