all the materials for use either in a manned space flight or in a flight experiment, including materials of the spacecraft, crew provision, and equipment, must be evaluated and meet certain performance criteria as established during the mercury, gemini, apollo, and skylab programs. in addition to testing for the primary requirements of flame-resistance, odor, offgassing products, flash- and fire-point temperatures, cotton textile items were also considered as candidate space-shuttle, in-flight apparel on the basis of skin sensitivity, comfort, electrical resistivity, colorfastness, and general protective features exhibited under certain conditions of flame and heat exposure. in the reported experiments, the selected cotton fabrics were treated first with commercial phosphonium salts and subsequently cured with gaseous ammonia. the process is more commonly referred to as the tetrakis (hydroxymethyl) phosphonium hydroxide/ammonia (thpoh/nh//3) method. a second finishing application was required in order for the finished textile items to meet the slightly oxygen-enriched environment of the spacecraft crew bay area. the final finishing process comprised adding on diammonium phosphate (dap)/urea, drying, curing and afterwashing. dap is a more efficient flame inhibitant than the phosphonium polymer, thus the combination treatment served to impart higher resistance to ignition and sustained combustion, as required by nasa test standards. 4 refs