Who Invented Velcro?

Velcro was invented in 1941 by George De Mestral, an engineer from Commugny, Switzerland. George and his dog were hunting in the Alps when George noticed something that most of us have experienced. There were dozens of these little sticky seeds all over his pant legs in in his dogs hair.

What George noticed that we didn't was that while the seeds were nearly impossible to get out of his dog's hair, it was relatively easy to remove them from his pant legs even though they were very firmly attached. Upon looking at the seeds with a microscope, George discovered that the sticky outer surface of the seeds was actually a huge number of "hooks" that got hooked to anything with a loop.

In a way, it's not clear whether we should ask "Who invented Velcro" or "Who discovered Velcro". Of course, even though something exists in nature, it's seldom convenient to use in its natural form and the discoverer / inventor" deserves much credit for seeing the potential for making human life easier.

What if a product could be made that allows someone to open or close things in the snap of two fingers? Instead of tying shoelaces, for example, how about just snapping them "tied" in a moment? What about the possibility of hanging things on walls without having to puncture the wall? What about clothing that needs to go on and come off in a hurry such as a fireman's heat resistant suit? There could be dozens or hundreds of such uses!

All George had to do was figure out a way to produce two simple items. He needed one layer of "hooks" and another layer of "loops" that were attached to something that could be sewn, glued, or in some other way attached to the walls, shoes, fireman's suit, etc. For that he needed funding but, unfortunately, sometimes the inventor is the only one who sees that potential for his idea. Bankers couldn't see the need for a product that filled a need that was already being performed by zippers and buttons. Of course, the bankers had made the same argument against the zipper just three decades earlier. Many people in the business community thought he was a fool for wasting his time on such an unneeded idea.

George didn't give up though. He decided to do research on his own and with the help of a weaver from France to find an economical way to produce his "hooks" and "loops". George nearly gave up when eight years later he had a brainstorm! He suddenly knew how to produce the product by machine in large quantities at a low cost!

In 1951 George Mestral received a patent for his invention. Very soon afterwards, Velcro was being sold in numerous locations in the US and around the world. Yes, George got the last laugh on the bankers and the business moguls and today Velcro is its own multi-million dollar per year success story!

Perhaps the most interesting reference to Velcro is the fact that it's often blamed for the deaths of astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee during a test of the Apollo 1 spacecraft. Engineers had warned that Velcro, while extremely handy in space for keeping objects from floating around, was also dangerously flammable in an oxygen rich atmosphere. The Apollo 1 spacecraft contained a 100% oxygen atmosphere. Those engineers recommended no more than 500 square inches be installed but Velcro was so useful that the spacecraft ended out with ten times that much! In any case, it was the excessive use of Velcro along with the increased flammability of everything else in a pure oxygen atmosphere plus a spark from an electrical problem that cause the deaths. Velcro's inherent flammability was only a small part of the problem.

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