Quote of the day:
“I would annex the planets if I could.”
— Cecil Rhodes, (1853–1902) was a British imperialist, mining magnate, and politician in Southern Africa. His quote is provocative and this life controversial, but in the context of design, it prompts us to consider ambition: how far is too far, and when does scale become hubris?
Made me think:
🧠 The Einstellung Effect — a cognitive bias where designers default to familiar solutions even when better ones exist. Identified by Abraham Luchins (1942), it shows how past experience can limit fresh thinking. In footwear design, it appears when a team reuses the same outsole pattern because “it worked last season,” overlooking new materials or manufacturing methods that could produce a lighter, stronger, or more sustainable option. It’s a reminder that expertise can quietly narrow innovation.
The Apollo 17 Lunar Overshoe
When Eugene Cernan stepped onto the Moon in December 1972—becoming the last human ever to do so—he was wearing what might be the most extreme pair of boots ever engineered: the Apollo Lunar Overshoe. For footwear designers, it’s a masterclass in problem-solving at the edge of physics, and a reminder that even a footprint can become immortal.
Unlike most parts of the Apollo spacesuit, which came with long technical names and multi-letter acronyms, this piece of gear had a refreshingly straightforward name: the lunar overboot. Its job was simple to say, impossibly complex to execute—protect the inner PGA (Pressure Garment Assembly) boot from temperatures swinging from –180°C to +120°C, razor-sharp basalt fragments, electrostatically charged dust, and a vacuum that would happily boil human sweat into steam.
Each pair was a collaboration between ILC Industries (makers of the pressure suits) and General Electric in Lynn, Massachusetts. What they produced pushed materials science further than almost any footwear project before or since.
The Chromel-R Revolution
The outer shell was made from Chromel-R, a woven chromium-steel fabric so advanced—and so hellishly difficult to produce—that it cost around $2,000–$2,775 per yard in the 1970s (equivalent to roughly $15,000 today). It could shrug off temperatures of 1,200°F, resist abrasion from jagged lunar rock, and maintain structural integrity in vacuum.
For designers used to fighting over pennies on leather prices, imagine specifying a textile worth more than a diamond per metre.
A Boot With Layers Like a Planet
The interior was a universe of insulation. Depending on the suit generation (A7L or A7LB), the inside could include:
- Aluminized Mylar in up to nine alternating layers
- Non-woven Dacron spacers
- Teflon-coated Beta cloth
- Beta felt and Nomex insulation pads
- Kapton laminates
These weren’t “materials”—they were a thermal strategy. Each layer reflected, spaced, or absorbed energy differently, creating a wearable micro-climate around the astronaut’s foot.
The Silicone Sole That Left History’s Most Iconic Print
The sole was made from silicone rubber, shaped with deep ribs to add insulation from the super-heated regolith, provide lateral rigidity, frip the ladder of the lunar module and most iconically—leave that geometric, instantly recognisable Apollo bootprint still sitting on the Moon today.
It’s likely the most famous outsole pattern ever created, and ironically, it wasn’t designed for branding at all—it was designed for survival, I love that!
Engineering for Gloves, Vacuum, and Zero Error
Even the fastening system was designed to be manipulated while wearing bulky EVA gloves. A heel strap with a mechanical latch allowed quick tightening without fine motor skills—something many modern outdoor brands still struggle with.
To put them on, astronauts opened a complex arrangement of snaps, straps, and folded surplus material, inserted the PGA boot, then sealed the overshoe like armour. Once locked in, they became part of a pressure-balanced ecosystem that allowed mobility in an environment where normal footwear would freeze, melt, disintegrate, or ignite.
The Last Footsteps
Cernan’s pair weighs just 0.9 kg, yet has become one of the most symbolically heavy objects in human history. The lunar boots were discarded before liftoff—left behind deliberately to save return weight. Somewhere near Taurus-Littrow Valley, Cernan’s overshoes still lie on the lunar surface, untouched since 1972.
His last words on the Moon were:
“We leave as we came, and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind.”
But designers know: we also left footwear, and a masterpiece of engineering built to survive a world we weren’t meant to walk on.
Something to think about
When you strip away branding, marketing, and seasonality—and design purely for physics, survival, and human capability—what would your product look like?
