William Anders' Apollo 8 Protective Training Overgloves

Although this site will focus on flown artifacts most of the time, every once and while there comes an interesting unflown item that is worthy of discussion. These overgloves are one such piece. William Anders, the lunar module pilot for Apollo 8, wore these overgloves as protection for his IVA gloves during his training for the first mission to fly to the Moon.

The overgloves are made of Teflon coated nylon with a velcro strip around the lower portion for attachment to the Inter-Vehicular Activity (IVA) gloves that were made of rubber and needed protection during training in the simulators.

This A7L over-glove was used to protect the astronaut's suit glove from excessive wear during the months of training. This particular design was only in use during the Apollo 8 & 9 missions, as these orbital missions used a different protective over-glove to the one designed for working on the lunar surface. A label inside identifies it as having been made for the Apollo 8 lunar module pilot, Bill Anders.

Although intended only for training, Anders is shown wearing overgloves along with the rest of the Apollo 8 crew (Borman and Lovell) during the walk out to the transfer van on launch day.