Mark IV pressure suit. All six original Mercury astronauts went to Akron to be fitted by Colley for their suits, which were two-ply silver nylon coated with neoprene. After Shepard's flight aboard Freedom 7, the Akron press dubbed Colley "First Tailor of the Space Age" and Goodrich saluted him as "Father of the Spacesuit". Colley also designed special gloves worn by John Glenn, when he became the first American to orbit space in 1962. Glenn wanted the fingertips to light up so he could see his instrument panel, since lighting in the spaceship was sacrificed to keep the weight down. Glenn often floated around the spaceship using the fingertips for light, near the end of his 1962 orbit, he described his last few moments in space as a "lights out" experience, as the lights malfunctioned in his fingertips leaving him without any way to see. Later life and hobbies Colley received NASA's Distinguished Public Service Medal in 1994. Colley collected 65 patents in his career. When he retired from NASA, he returned to Ohio, where he practiced jewelry design with his exquisite gem cuts, featured in The Lapidary Journal. A watercolor artist, Colley was an original member of the Whiskey Painters of America, founded in 1951 in Akron by industrial designer Joe Ferriot. Colley and others perfected the genre of painting miniature watercolors using alcohol as the medium. Russell Colley died February 4, 1996, in Springfield, Ohio. References External links Russell Colley at Ohio History Central "Tailor to the Stars," The Osgood File, CBS Radio, 27 July 1999 First Airplane Deicers 1897 births 1996 deaths American aerospace engineers Wentworth Institute of Technology alumni 20th-century American engineers