Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

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First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
7. At the completion of the project all of the participants must be graded
on the effectiveness of their performances.
8. The investigators must then seek significant correlations between subject
performances on the various simulating and nonsimulating tests and successful
mission performances.
9. Those nonsimulating tests bearing significant correlation with successful
mission performances may then be used to select future subjects from an
identical population for identical projects. These future crew members will be
highly reliable risks in successfully completing their missions. This is the goal of
all endeavors at crew selection.
Actual Approach to Problem:
Inherent errors are frequently introduced when making a transition from
an ideal to an applied test program due, for example, to time limitations, accelerated
schedules, or unforeseen changes. The actual approach to the problem is
stated below, preceded by an underlined restatement of the ideal approach:
1. The candidates must be medically acceptable and technically capable
before they will be considered as potential candidates. The candidates were medically
acceptable and technically capa ble. They met the following requirements: a.
were pilots in the Department of Defense, b. had received engineering degrees,
c. had successfully graduated from a military test pilot school, d. had achieved at
least 1500 hours of total flying time, and e. each man’s height was 5’11” or less
One hundred and ten men met the above requirements. Sixty-nine of these men
were invited to a [3] NASA briefing where the detailed plans of Project Mercury
were revealed. The subjects were then asked if they desired to volunteer as competitive
candidates. Fifty-five of them volunteered.
2. Those who are tested must be the actual project candidates. A large
candidate population will increase the reliability of the results. Those who were
tested actually were the Project Mercury candidates. The 55 men who were
accepted were given a series of interviews and psychological tests. On the basis
of the data thus obtained, 32 were chosen for the final phase of the selection
program. The 32 candidates were sent to the Lovelace Foundation, Albuquerque,
New Mexico, for extensive medical histories, physical examinations, and biochemical
and physiological tests.* A large random candidate population was not
used. If the candidate population had been larger it would have been impossible
to process them in time to meet the close time schedules of the project.
3. The test profile must simulate all aspects of the stresses anticipated
during the actual project. It was impossible to devise a laboratory situation which
exactly duplicated the stresses anticipated during Protect Mercury. A rational
alternative approach was to list the anticipated stresses and to use what laboratory
tools were available.