Did You Know Bounce House Inflatables and the Moonwalk were Related?
Spend just about any amount of time in the party rentals business, and you'll likely end up hearing someone refer to an inflatable bounce house as a "moonwalk," "space walk," or "spacewalker." And you'd be perfectly justified in assuming why they call it that, too. At face value, it just seems logical; you're bouncing around like an astronaut roaming the lunar surface. It makes sense, right?
Well, it turns out the answer is a little more complicated than that. And we're talking about it now because fifty years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were already on their way to visit the surface of the Moon.
Wait ... hang on. What the heck does the moon landing have to do with bounce house inflatables? Well I'd tell you if you'd stop cutting me off, jeez!
The Story of John Scurlock
Before we take you for a walk on the moon, we first need to go for a walk through the town of Center, Texas. And no, it's not actually in the center of Texas (we checked). Anyway, that's where John Scurlock was born in 1926. Scurlock served in World War II and studied electrical engineering, eventually ending up working at NASA.
While Scurlock didn't invent the lunar module or contribute directly to the Apollo 11 mission, his time at NASA did lead him to experiment with plastics and discover his knack for inventing things. Amongst his numerous inventions were inflatable tents, domes, and a large air cushion used by first responders to save people evacuating burning and collapsing buildings.
You probably already see where this is going, right? In 1959, John Scurlock was watching his kids play on an air structure he had created. Seeing its huge potential for fun, Scurlock created "the Space Walk," and eventually rented them out as the world's first commercial bounce house.
It's unknown whether any of Scurlock's inflatables were involved in the moon landings. But we can certainly credit him and the Scurlock family for their integral role in developing early bounce house inflatables and helping create this all-important element of the party rentals industry.
The Apollo 11 Moon Landing
On July 16, 1969 a massive Saturn V rocket carried the Apollo 11 crew toward the Moon, where they landed on July 20, 1969. That makes Saturday the 50th anniversary of what many consider to be the greatest exploratory accomplishment in all of human history.
Just think of how meteoric our technology's growth has been since Neil Armstrong made that first "small step" on the moon. Computers have revolutionized the world we live in; your smart phone is more than a hundred million times more powerful than Apollo 11 era computers. The internet has infiltrated nearly every facet of daily life. And we now have people living on a monumental International Space Station. How cool is that?
It may not have involved a commercial bounce house, but the Apollo 11 moon landing certainly did play a vital role in the eventual bounce house craze. Watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin moonwalk on the lunar surface while Michael Collins orbited overhead in the command module was, and still is today, an awe-inspiring sight to behold. One that has filled countless millions of children around the world not only with wonder, but with aspirations to bounce around like they did.
Are You Going for a Moonwalk This Weekend?
If ever there was a great time to go for a moonwalk, this 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission is definitely it. Unless you're thinking of the Michael Jackson moonwalk, anyway. That anniversary is in May. So go ahead and put that bedazzled glove back in its protective case ... sorry.
Be sure to mention to your customers this weekend that it's the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Especially tell all of the kids you encounter. Just don't be surprised if some of them try to bounce higher and play harder than usual.
This should be a weekend where imaginations run wild and where play gets creative. A weekend for wonder. Without wonder or imagination, we never would've visited the moon. And John Scurlock never would've invented the bounce house either, for that matter. We owe a lot to creativity. And we owe a lot to the space program and all of the influence it has had on our industry, too.