Suits: more important than you think

I used to wear a suit to work, back when I was an astronaut. Every morning, freshly pressed pants, a half-Windsor knot in the tie, and the plastic bubble over my head. The last part was always hardest: black loafers or moon boots?

It's hard for me to think about those days now, though. The saddest thing about our space program is its lack of fashion sense. And they used to have such taste! NASA's designers were the envy of everyone from Milan to Edwards AFB. With budgets what they are today, though, it's all sweatshop work out of Vietnam. Our astronauts look like the Soviets used to: lumpy mannequins in bags of aluminized plastic that bunch in all the wrong places and flatter no one.

It'll be the end of them.

You know why America won the space race? The Russians put the first man in space, after all. Why was the moon such a big deal? Why didn't the Russians just tell the world, "big deal, let's see who makes it to Mars"? Here's why: because when Neil Armstrong stepped down out of that lander, he looked damn good doing it. No matter who you were, what race, religion, or creed, you looked at him and you thought "damn, now _there's_ a man who looks good on the moon." The Soviets knew that even if they beat us to Mars, they'd never dislodge that image from the world's collective psyche, and so they never even tried.

Maybe one of these days all those bigshots up in the control rooms at NASA will realize that all the engineering in the world isn't worth a thing if you don't have a sense of style. Maybe they'll get it through their heads that robot probes and a couple of guys floating around in the International Space Station dressed in last week's newspaper won't get take mankind to the stars. And if they don't -- well, I don't like to think about it.

It's been a long time since I wore a suit to work.