Contrary to popular belief, the space race did not begin during the presidency of John F. Kennedy. The first two men to leave earth’s orbit - Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union and Alan Shepard of the United States - did so just months into JFK’s term in office in 1961. But President Eisenhower signed the law that created America’s space agency, which was born in October 1958.
Before Shepard’s Mercury rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, years of preparation and testing preceded his space mission.
Scientists needed to better understand the consequences of weightlessness on the human body. Experiments were conducted. NASA enlisted a special group of men to help them in their research.
Gallaudet University in Washington, DC was founded in 1864 in the midst of the American Civil War. Though a private entity, its federal charter for over 150 years states that it is committed to the education of deaf students.
The college had several titles during its existence but has long been named for its first president Edward Miner Gallaudet.
NASA recruited volunteers from Gallaudet University for their experiments.
Why deaf men? The vestibular system and cochlea in the inner ear helps control our balance. People who suffer damage to those regions of the brain maintain their balance but often lose any sense of motion sickness. Scientists wanted to know how the loss of gravity in space might affect a person’s sense of equilibrium and general perceptions.
Some people are born deaf. Others acquire deafness from a variety of causes. Spinal meningitis, an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and the spinal cord, can cause people to go deaf. That was the case with ten of the eleven Gallaudet volunteers; they had spinal meningitis early in their lives.
The Gallaudet Eleven, as they came to be known, ranged from 25-48 years of age. They participated in NASA studies for ten years from 1958-68.
The men endured being spun in centrifuges, which became standard for many astronauts.
They flew aboard Vomit Comets, airplanes used to create zero gravity.
Four men spent twelve days inside a “room” that constantly rotated, spinning ten times per minute. During that test, they had to throws darts at a dartboard.
One subject rode the elevator inside the Empire State Building over and over for hours in an attempt to make him nauseous. That failed.
The eleven were sent out to sea on a ship subjected to turbulent ocean waves. None of the deaf men experienced any seasickness, but their scientist counterparts onboard grew so ill they had to call off the experiment.
After a decade, their research was completed. By that time, the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions had sent 19 men to space.
None of the Gallaudet deaf volunteers ever traveled to space, but they proved valuable to the advancement of manned space flight.
The Gallaudet Eleven were Harold Domich, Robert Greenmun, Barron Gulak, Raymond Harper, Jerald Jordan, Harry Larson, David Myers, Donald Peterson, Raymond Piper, Alvin Steele, and John Zakutney.
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