In 2007, astronaut Lisa Nowak thrust NASA “diapers” into the media spotlight when police in Orlando, Fla., charged her with the attempted kidnapping of U.S. Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman. Although the space agency’s absorption garments were soon the butt of late night talk show monologues everywhere, they were also an elegant solution to an unpleasant engineering challenge—so elegant, in fact, that the story of the moonstruck astronaut inspired at least one company to ape NASA’s design.