I thought I remember hearing that he worked on high-altitude suits at some point in the 40's, ie with some of the same people who would design space suits, whic

I thought I remember hearing that he worked on high-altitude suits at some point in the 40's, ie with some of the same people who would design space suits, which explains the loving detail in the book 'Have Spacesuit, Will Travel.' I also see from Wikipedia something I didn't know -- that he recruited Asimov to work where he did during the war! -- and those must have been very heady times, with all of them exposed to practical engineering at the intersection of math, circuits, early computing, design and fabrication.