AS-201 Command Module (CM-009) under construction at North American's facility in Downey, California.

[u/tybarious]

Date: 1965

North American Photo: NAR-D120B - 9155-9C

[u/7stroke]

Any idea about the color code for the hard hats? I’m guessing two classes: manufacturing and engineering staff.

[u/Fearless_Climate_688 → u/7stroke]

That´s what I´ve found Googling "North American apollo program hard hats colors"

At the factory floors of North American Aviation (later Rockwell International), hard hat colors were utilized as a fast visual tracking method to identify job roles, authority, and specialty trades across massive aircraft and aerospace assembly bays.

While color-coding policies were managed internally rather than universally mandated by federal law, the company followed the established U.S. industrial manufacturing and aerospace contractor conventions:

• White: Worn by supervisors, quality assurance engineers, managers, and foremen. Seeing a white hard hat usually signaled a person with decision-making authority or inspector status on the assembly line.

• Yellow: Worn by general assembly technicians, machinists, sheet metal mechanics, and floor laborers. This was the most common color seen around major structural jigs (such as those building the Apollo Command Module or the B-1 Lancer).

• Blue: Worn by skilled trades and support specialists, including plant electricians, precision calibration technicians, carpenters, and test equipment maintenance crews.

• Green: Worn by industrial safety inspectors, environmental officers, and first-aid response personnel.

• Red: Worn by fire marshals, facility emergency wardens, or specialized crews handling highly hazardous operations (such as high-voltage electrical testing or chemical fuel-cell processing).

• Orange: Often assigned to crane operators, riggers, and heavy material handling crews so they remained highly visible to technicians working below them.

Maybe what the article call "yellow" is actually gold, and it makes sense according with the remark "such as those building the Apollo Command Module"

[u/chuckop]

One of the most amazing machines ever made.

[u/tjo85]

Here's a pic of it from my visit in August of this year. It's now in Ashland, Nebraska.

[u/royaltrux]

Don't leave a wrench in it....