I remember you first talked about develop ing velcro and you wanted to use it in the navy. You introduced it for the pants and you got that through the plants that stuck together, do you want to describe that?

There are many different types of plants that stick to your trousers you when you walk through the woods. That suggested the idea for velcro. Nature's been around for millions of years, I hate to say nature solves the problems but it has worked out the many lifeforms that tend to exist. If you study what nature has accomplished over the years you can save yourself a lot of trouble.

I remember the story that you tried to introduce velcro to the navy a long time ago. Didn't they have a lot of buttons?

Yes, a lot of buttons on the trousers of a sailor and he had to button himself up before he came of the barracks. With velcro they can come out right away if there is an air raid or anything else. So I thought of using the natural method that velcro uses to stick to clothing to make two pieces of velcro on the zipper area so you didn't need to zip things up or button the fly.

This was long before velcro came into existence and he also introduced that to the airforce and for the shoes too so that the sailors could get out of the barracks quickly. I remember the story that you brought it to somebody in the airforce and you described it and they said "you forgot one thing" and you were amazed and asked "what did I forget?" and they said "tradition".

You would never use airplanes in the army if you went by tradition. A very good example of that were the Polish. They believed in the cavalry and the Germans slaughtered them on their horses because they couldn't see the future

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Answered by Jacque Fresco, Roxanne Meadows, TVP Authorized

QA#: 2012052007
Transcribed by Tülay Güneş