(static crackling) - Roger, 4807, approaching runway seven bravo. - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new Information Operations Technical Training school. - First Command simply must arm our airmen to out-think, out-perform, out-partner, out-innovate any potential adversary. - Air Force basic military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - The First Command, The Air Force Starts Here. - Hello and welcome to The Air Force Starts Here podcast. I'm your host for this professional development podcast, Jennifer Gonzalez, from the AETC Public Affairs Team. In this episode, we are looking back in history at the Air Force's role in space at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, then known as Randolph Air Force Base. As you know, history was made at JBSA Lackland on December 10th with the graduation of the first seven guardians from basic military training, who enlisted directly into the U.S. Space Force. But believe it or not, Texas is steeped in space history as Randolph Air Force Base is ground zero for space innovation in Building 661. This unassuming building was home to the U.S. Space Force School of Aerospace Medicine, and inaugurated the world's first Department of Space Medicine in 1949, long before NASA and the U.S. Space Force were created. The school, which started at Brooks Air Force Base and moved to Randolph, where much of the pioneering work began, moved back to Brooks in 1959. Take a listen to this amazing connection Randolph Air Force Base has to space with AETC History and Museums Program Director, Mr. Gary Boyd, and AETC historian Mr. Rudy Purificato. (whooshing) - I'm Gary Boyd, I'm the air education training command director of history and museums. Rudy is and has been our expert for space and air force research. - My background, I spent 16 years at Brooks Air Force Base, and while I was there 16 years I met many of the pioneered scientists, and I learned about the history of what was done not only there, but here. The focus of this story is what happened in 661. That was when the school of aviation medicine moved here. It actually went to Brooks Field first in 1926, and that's the same year that the Army Air Service became the Army Air Corps. - That's right. - And then in 1931 the school moved to Randolph, the School of Aviation Medicine moved to Randolph. And that's where things started to happen, and the main building was 661. Dr. Harry Armstrong, who was the commandant of the School of Aviation Medicine back in the late 40s, he was a pioneer, and he also was a visionary, and he knew about the German move plot during World War II and some of the leading scientists over there, and he decided in 1949 to create the world's first department of space medicine. So we're talking about the creation of the Air Force's Space Force, well the ground zero for the Air Force's Space Force was in Building 661 with the creation of the world's first department of space medicine. And what we did was recruit some of the leading German scientists from the German move plot after World War II, under what we call the Public School Operation Paperclip. Most of the science he brought and engineered, German science engineers from the Germany move plot came to Randolph Air Force Base. The two primary ones that for the purposes of what happened in 661 were Hans and Prince Harvard, the Harvard brothers. They were astrophysicists. They were pioneers in space medicine research. And the Harvard brothers conceived an idea in 1952, to develop the world's first space cabin simulator. It was a low pressure chamber, three by five foot, several tons, two and a half tons, built in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And this was a low pressure chamber and they converted it into a space cabin to test atmospheres. What happens if you survive in space at different atmospheres. So this is 1952, and this device later became, it was called Terrella 1, which in Latin means little earth, and it was in the basement of Building 661. The three concerns that the Air Force space medicine researchers had in terms of studying space, and this is the pioneering stuff, three concerns was acceleration, weightlessness and radiation. Well how to test that? In 1955, three years after they developed Terrella 1 was the weightlessness flight, the weightless flights, to mimic weightlessness for a brief period of time. So the Harvard brothers created Terrella 1, the pressure chamber, and then, '55, the weightless flights. This continued all the way through the end of the 50s. So, '52, the Terrella 1, the low pressure chamber tests, '55, the weightlessness in flight, and then in '57, October the fourth, 1957, the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union did something, the Soviet Union grabbed half of the German scientists and engineers after the war, and they used those scientists to launch Sputnik, Sputnik One, and that started the space race. Well, when that happened, October 4th, 1957, there's no NASA. It was quite embarrassing to the United States and the United States knew about what the Air Force was doing here at Randolph, and they said, what can we do to counter what the Soviets did in space, and Dr. Armstrong and his colleagues said, we have something to do, we're going to launch this young man, this is Donald, Airman First Class Donald Farrell, an accountant in the top shelf of his office at Lackland Air Force Base, from the Bronx, New York, 23 years old, he's going to become the world's first person to be sequestered in a researched chamber on a simulated trip to the moon. Now you have to understand, this chamber, the Terrella 1, that he went into, no human being had been put in a research chamber for any length of time. He was the first human being to be put in a research chamber. Now the simulation put him where he's at 100% oxygen at 18,000 feet. And this test started in February, mid February, 1958. Shortly after, with this, excuse me. And so for seven days Donald Farrell went through all kinds of physiological and psychological tests. Mid February, '58, he emerged from his journey to the moon and was greeted by this fellow by the name of Lyndon Johnson, Senator Lyndon Johnson. And he became a national hero. But what he did was he was the first space traveler, enlisted Air Force, an airman became the first space traveler, even though in simulated space. - So did that airman conduct that test here at Randolph? - In 661, in the basement. - In the basement. In a room you could scarcely get into. It was amazing. I don't even know how they got Terrella 1 in there. They had to have taken it apart. - Gotta take some wall. By the way, that chamber is now on display, it's on display the Airman Heritage Museum at Lackland Air Force Base. So in July of 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created, the world's first civilian space agency. But when NASA, as the world's first civilian space agency, they had no expertise in behavioral sciences, biological science, and space medicine. They turned to the air force, under contract for the next 30 years. 661 at Randolph was really ground zero for Air Force's Space, the original Air Force's Space Force. - Well, the American space program. - For American space program, really. - It was right here at Randolph. Pretty historic building. But that's not all that happened at 661. Besides, (laughing) that's not the whole story. So we had the historic Farrell simulated trip to the moon, 1958. - Simulated lunar travel. - Lunar travel, 1958. The weightless flights were being conducted still, 1955. And then here's Airman Phil. So now that NASA was created in July of 1958, the Air Force under contract was supporting NASA on a lots of experiments. One of the things that they had to worry about was creation of pressure suits, spacesuits. That's happened here also, and later on at Brooks. But also that they were concerned about the physiological effects of space flight, especially acceleration. We had rockets, actually they were missiles, ballistic missiles. The Redstone, the Mercury Redstone was a ballistic missile. And so the first astronauts, the American astronauts were on top in a capsule on top of the missile. But they had to find out, the air force and NASA had to find out what were the physiological effects of acceleration, especially on a ballistic missile pulling 17 Gs, can you imagine? So they started experimenting with primates. - Here in? - Yes. - Yes, okay. (laughing) Now let me put to all this perspective. At Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico the first test with primates were two spider monkeys, but they just shot them up and came down, they didn't go into orbit or sub-orbit. But the first primates to go into sub-orbit and to orbit were trained right here at Randolph in 661. So this is Sam Space. And Sam Space was named after the School of Aerospace Medicine. - One of the interesting things that happened, the monkeys were trained here in Building 661. So Sam went up to space and Miss Sam went up to space, and then following that, 1959, the school moved from here to Brooks Air Force Base. - And the name changed. - The name changed to Aerospace. - Aerospace, because of the space mission. - All that started here, ground zero, the first, really the Space Force, the Air Force Space Force was really at 661, right here at the School of Aviation Medicine. And of course it continued on at Brooks. - So the School of Aviation Medicine that was here initially, am I correct in saying there were basically two, there was that space element with Armstrong and his team, and then there was the just pilot mission? You know, finding out about about the effects. - Yeah, right, they were training, it was a school. So they trained the flight surgeons that went out around the airport. - Okay. - And it's interesting because Jaeger passed away last week. - Yeah, he did. - Even the mission at Edwards and at Muroc Field, and the other places, Wright Field, and that was impacted immensely by Brooks and by Randolph because the scientists and the surgeons that were assigned to test flying were trained here, and they had direct pipelines to Armstrong and the Armstrong laboratory. So there was, it was a small Air Force and Randolph especially impacted almost all aspects of the future mission of the Air Force for that period of time. It's quite remarkable. And 661 is the nexus of the entire space program because at the time we started we knew next to nothing about the problems associated with long-term space flight. We knew what we didn't know, and we wanted to try and accumulate enough knowledge to make it safe. And I think it's important to acknowledge the enlisted contribution, too. Farrell was a volunteer. And it was interesting to take somebody without a scientific background who could give you an objective analysis of how they're feeling and what it was like to do this kind of thing without any preconceived notions and without any future aspirations as an astrophysicist or whatever. He was here to test that chamber and he did a remarkable job. - You mentioned the enlisted in this space history, and knowing that we just had our first enlisted BMT space graduation. - Right, right, right. Well, let me address that because, thank you, Gary, exactly right, Farrell opened the door and those sort of people have been supporting the NASA manned space flight program in the Air Force under contract was the enlisted force. They were, they're volunteers, starting here, not just with Farrell, but also testing suits for space and space food. They put these, I didn't bring the photos, but they put these young men, these airmen, Lackland airmen primarily, volunteers for various tests at altitude and testing space and the food that was being developed for them, tasteless stuff that it had, and they would actually weigh them, weigh them before they went in and weigh them when they came out. One of the pioneers was the Lieutenant Colonel May O'Hara. She was the first Air Force space nutritionist and helped develop in concert with the Natick Laboratories, the first space food. And they developed this food and the airmen, these airmen who have to consume this food inside of a chamber, locked up in the chamber for weeks. One of the longest chamber tests was 54 consecutive days. Can you imagine some of the contributions made by the enlisted force to health? One of the most unusual experiments ever conducted by the United States Air Force was done in 1967. It was called Project Bedrest. So remember I mentioned there earlier, the three concerns of space research was radiation, weightlessness, and acceleration. How do you test the effects, physiological effects on a human being in space in weightlessness. They wanted to find out what the long-term effects, the physiological effects, of zero gravity. And there's no way to test it because before we had the parabolic flights, 15, 20 seconds it has, that could do it. So they came up with, the scientists, the Air Force scientists came up with this idea of using an analogy, and they discovered that if you're perpendicular to the earth's surface, and when you go to sleep at night if you're prone position, gravity has no effect on you. That's the launch profile of all our space launches, is that X position. So what they did was they asked for volunteers, again, airmen from Lackland Air Force Base to conduct Project Bedrest. I had photographs, should've brought the photographs. These airmen volunteer. These are healthy young airmen, 18, 19 years old. They did all these tests on them. And they were confined to bed in a prone position for six weeks. - Oh my God. (laughing) - To mimic the effects of zero gravity on the body. So they did this. And so the first couple of weeks they discovered something was happening. What would you guess after not being two weeks immobile? And we have film of the them being picked up to go to the bathroom. They had to be picked up and go to the bathroom and brought back to the bed. And we have footage of that. - Right. - So what do you think happened after two weeks? What did they, what to the physiological? - I mean, they would, they would. - They're not moving at all. - Yeah, they'd lose the ability to, I imagine. - Muscle, muscle atrophy. Okay, scientists kind of figured that was gonna happen. Four weeks in, they were shocked on what was happening to these young airmen. They were developing a medical condition associated with women of older age. - Osteoporosis. - Osteoporosis the hollowing out of your bones, like chicken bones. - That is, by the way, this study was after four weeks. And this study was for a longterm flight to Mars, by the way. And at the time our technology would get to Mars in about two years one way. Now it's eight months. But that's what they were doing. This is '67. We haven't even gotten to the moon yet and Air Force scientists were thinking about a Mars mission. So can you imagine if what they found out, if they had not done this, sending a space traveler to Mars, you could be jello by the time you get out of the space capsule. So what the scientists did at the School of Aerospace Medicine, they came up with an idea to reverse the effects of muscle atrophy and osteoporosis. They developed a total body exercise, a device that they built at Brooks Air Force Base, and at 20 minutes a day, they brought these airmen in and they exercised and they reversed both the effects. NASA picked up on it. Now you see it on the space station, they're doing their exercises, and that led to the cardiovascular conditioning exercises for the United States, for people throughout the world. So that led to that. So the health benefits out of the space program out of the Air Force's ideas, pioneering, and vision was developed by the Air Force, the first Air Force Space Force. This was the School of Aerospace Medicine. - That's absolutely amazing. - Going back to 661 Donald Farrell in that chamber test. Of course, before we made that famous '58, 1958 flight to the moon, scientists had those atmospheric tests, developing different atmospheres. - All that data that the Air Force was accumulating from 1952 until throughout the 50s was great supportive of NASA later on when they needed it. You remember Apollo 13? I got to meet Jim Lovell. - Oh, yes. - I met him. You know what happened, they were 200,000 miles from Earth and had an explosion, they lost oxygen in that capsule. They're basically almost marooned. And NASA, what are we gonna do? And because you had spilling carbon dioxide. How much oxygen and carbon dioxide, how long can they survive until we figure out how to get them back? They turned to the Air Force, Dr. Billy Welch, who I interviewed, he's still alive, had all the data of all those experiments, so they knew how much time they had to save those astronauts. So the Air Force came again and really saved the bacon. I use to the colloquial expression of the financing that saved those astronauts because we had the data right here. It was right here at 661. - There was time to innovate and to come up with the filtration system, but they needed to know precisely what the limits of human endurance were at CO2 intoxication, that environment like that. And we had it. - And one of things, the benefit of this, of promoting this history we're doing, and Mr. Boyd mentioned when the command chief of the new Space Force came, Mr. Boyd mentioned, his vision to use 661 as a starting point for a space of culturalization. - Yeah, and I think it depends, post COVID, and a lot of things are happening quickly for them, but we're in San Antonio, and if they continue to train here it makes sense for me to avail ourselves or at least tell them of the resources that are here and maybe have them traveled to 661, travel to the centrifuge at Brooks, and to take a look at some of the epic areas of space pioneering airmen. Because space and airmen are synonymous. I know that there's kind of a concept with star Trek that is kind of navalized. Well, reality is it's always been Air Force domain because we were charged to learn how to operate in these environments. It was the Air Force's mission. The Navy had some similar research, but for the most part the Air Force has been the leader in that, everything from G suits in World War II and some of the pressure suits that came from that were tested, developed, or okayed at the School of Aviation, and then later at the School of Aerospace Medicine. So what a legacy. In order for us to even operate it had to have started in a laboratory. It had to have started with the genius of some of those folks who were associated with SAM over the years. And it's such a great thing that, Randolph is, itself, basically a historical diorama. 661 is still there. The materials that the Space Force, what used originally are still there. And thankfully, you know, five degrees of separation or six degrees. Well, with Rudy it's one degree of separation from some of the very first pioneers of space. And I wanted him to impart as much of his knowledge on this generation of airmen as possible. - Knowing the history of Building 661 and the role that the enlisted force played in that history, and then seeing for the first time those enlisted space BMT graduates, seeing it all kind of come full circle and about six degrees of separation, what was that like standing in your shoes as a historian? - Last year at this time I think we were talking with the group from CSPAN, they're during the documentary, and we stopped at 661, and they went, well, why are we here? Well, let me tell you. And I had a, we've just created the Space Force, but I could see there was a lack of awareness of where it really started. And Rudy used to give tours of Randolph and people would say, well, that's interesting. But now that the Space Force is here and to see it dynamically in action, it really gives me a sense of satisfaction that we've been able to hold the line historically. And the artifacts are still here. The history is still here and the inspiration that we can impart is still possible. And it's kind of nice that the Space Force trains here. And I think that there's a lot of acculturation opportunities for them. Yes, it's my hope that San Antonio isn't bypassed completely in the new Space Force. There's a lot of good reasons to use Texas as a kind of a base for flying and space flight research. And it's the weather generally. But there's also a cluster of research capacity and people that make it possible for us to do the most at the least cost here. So there's a lot of good reasons that San Antonio has always been a part of it. But where we're going to go next, I don't know. But wherever they go, whether it's at the edge of our galaxy or Mars, they're taking a little bit of Randolph and Hazelhurst and Brooks with them. - What is Building 661 now, is it still operational or what is? - Yes, it is, it's part of A9 now. It's part of the innovations. - Be careful. (laughing) - And they were innovative to find out what their history was and they contacted us. So it worked out great. - So knowing that Building 661 is still operational under the A9 innovation umbrella, and knowing its history, that's pretty amazing. - It is, and I I'm glad you mentioned that because I think it's important to understand Randolph's contribution still continues. And pilot training next, the fact that it really, it started here as kind of a thought problem and has gone back and forth, Austin to here in 661, some of the innovators in A9 that were part of that, and then the 19th Air Force. 661 also was the 19th air force headquarters for many years. (laughing) - Wow. - So the circle never completes. It's like an orbit. (laughing) - It's wonderful to hear so much, that our history is steeped in innovation and our future is bright in innovation. - Yeah, that's right. - That's right. Like I said at the beginning of this interview, 661 is one of the most historic buildings in the Air Force. - And you'd never know it. - And you'd never know. - You know, I always say that about the Air Force, but there's this myth about the Air Force, zipper suit and gods, but the reality is, especially with Air Force's history, that the Air Force hasn't taken enough credit. We've done a lot of good things. World War II, not possible without complete air supremacy to invade Europe and to win the war in the Pacific it was not possible without the Air Force. The Air Force never has made any of these types of victory lap. We have always been more concerned with problems with today and tomorrow than really exalting in our history. And that it's kind of my job to remind the Air Force, well, you did some great things. Let's be happy about that and let's get this next generation excited. - Right, inspiration, really, the key. - And it's important that airmen come in and they start to think of themselves as a finance technicians, but the reality is we all have to be innovators. - Well, he was a finance person, wasn't he? - That's exactly it. (laughing) We're airmen first, and then, then it's that's that profession you're trying to attain through our skills training and what not. But airmen have to be innovative and they have to be forward-thinking and they have to be selfless in order for the Air Force to have survived this long. - Thank you both so much. - Thank you. - It's just so great. - Well, let me ask, did you learn one new thing today? - I learned a lot of new things today. I am gonna drive past that building with new appreciation. (whooshing) Enlisted contributions to space started with Airman Donald Farrell in 1958 and continues still today. To see images of the space program at Randolph Air Force Base, visit aetc.af.mil. You can also see Terrella 1 firsthand free of charge at the Airman Heritage Museum at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland. Thank you for the subscribe, stream, or download. And as a reminder, you can follow Air Education and Training Command and the AETC Command Team on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. From our entire AETC public affairs team, I'm Jennifer Gonzalez, and talk to you next time on The Air Force Starts Here.