Word: space
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...began to file into Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, from there went on to the Aero Medical Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton for more tests. For two weeks they were jolted, spun, vibrated, crushed, chilled and roasted in physical and psychological tests simulating the stresses of space flight. Each man was set to hiking on a treadmill that was elevated one degree per minute, and to pedaling increasing amounts of weight on a bikelike device. Each was whirled for 3½ minutes in a centrifuge speeding at various angles that simulated pressures up to twelve times...
Chance & Confidence. For the next two years, the seven will alternate between cosmic-secret isolation and fishbowl visibility.*Operating from Langley Research Center at Hampton, Va., the Astronauts will work along with the engineers-as experimental test pilots always do. Each man will help design one component of the space capsule: communications system, propulsion, instrumentation, etc. To toughen up for the physical trials and psychological terrors of space, they will spend hours in low-pressure chambers, wind tunnels, human cocktail shakers; they will be jolted on supersonic rocket sleds, flown in balloons and supersonic aircraft and eventually test-rocketed...
Meanwhile, the space vehicle, the Air Force's Atlas ICBM, will get a series of tests, with animals riding the capsules in some flights. After Astronauts and vehicle have checked out so that chances of successful probe and return are 96% to 98% -the same as the maiden flight of any experimental aircraft-the day of flight will be set. On that day the first man will be designated...
...most famed of the lot (he won headlines in 1957 as the first man to fly supersonically from Los Angeles to New York-piloting a Chance Vought F8U in 3 hr., 23 min.-later won $25,000 on TV's Name That Tune), probably has the most space savvy (McDonnell Aircraft consulted him in blueprinting Project Mercury's space capsule). He is also the champion humorist of the fast-cracking group, says: "I'm probably doing this because it is the nearest to heaven I'll ever get." His wife's opinions? "She thinks...
...years as aeronautical engineer for Boeing aircraft. Recalled in 1951, he served in Germany, was picked as a test pilot, recorded 3,400 flight hours (2,000 in jets). Says he: "We have gone about as far as we can on this globe. We have to go somewhere, and space is all that is left." And he adds: "I would give my left arm to be the first man in space...