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

Exploring the Unknown 187
recommends that the Space Task Group review with the Marshall Space Flight
Center the Redstone subsystem reliability data prior to first manned flight.
V. Medical Aspects of Project Mercury
1. General Comments
The major medical effort for the Mercury has followed the traditional
aeromedical approach. Once the “mission” was determined, the philosophy
emphasized selection of outstanding individuals to be the first astronauts. A training
program was established to expose these men as realistically as possible to the
anticipated stresses of space flight. Medical personnel provided specifications and
requirements for the design and construction of life support systems for the ballistic
and orbital flights and participated in the testing and training utilization of prototype
systems; undertook ground simulation of anticipated stressing situations; developed a
medical monitor system for ground control at Cape Canaveral and a series of stations
along the intended orbital path; participated in requirements for and extensive flotilla
of recovery ships and aircraft and provided medical contributions to recovery plans
and debriefing of the astronauts. These efforts by the small dedicated medical staff of
the Space Task Group have been exemplary.
Much less medical effort has been directed to understanding the unique
features of stress anticipated during space flight. During the program, when a new
physiological stress was identified, tests were designed to simulate the conditions.
After the astronaut “took” the test, the assumption was that [13] he could endure it as
a part of a combination of all the stresses in actual flight. The panel was disappointed
to learn that no attempt was made to evaluate the degree of the physiological stress on
the body. Thus, no penetrating medical analyses can be made of even those combined
stresses which can be simulated in a ground environment. As a result, it is not known
whether the astronauts are likely to border on respiratory and circulatory collapse
and shock, suffer a loss of consciousness or cerebral seizures, or be disabled from
inadequate respiratory or heat control. These uncertainties are awesome. Data from
NASA and DOD aircraft and high altitude balloon flight programs demonstrate a
demanding constellation of stresses, and yet measurements are not available which
would provide assurances of physiological fitness and survivability characteristics of
the pilots. When one must predict response in a more demanding situation apparent
health and satisfactory performance are not enough. Essential observations which
could provide the basis for extrapolation have not been made before, during, or after
these flight programs nor during comparable ground simulation tests. How great a
risk is being hazarded in the forthcoming Mercury flights is at present a matter for
clinical impression and not for scientific projection.
The considered opinion, reluctantly arrived at by the panel, is that the
clinical aspects of the Mercury medical program have been inadequate. We find
that this opinion is also shared by several Mercury consultants, by individuals
contributing to the simulation training program, and by other qualified observers.