Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Airman Donald Farrell sits inside a low pressure chamber dubbed “Terrella 1,” the world’s first space cabin simulator invented by USAF School of Aviation Medicine scientists at Randolph AFB in 1952. Farrell, a 23-year-old Lackland AFB accountant from the Bronx, New York, volunteered in February 1958 to be the first human to be sequestered inside a research chamber for a seven-day simulated trip to the moon conducted in Building 661 at Randolph AFB. The ‘moon trip’ was conducted over a 168-hour period from Feb. 9-16, 1958. So famous was Farrell’s ‘lunar journey,’ a U.S. response to the Soviet Union having started the space race with their launch of the world’s first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 on Oct 4, 1957, that TV producer Rod Serling created a “Twilight Zone TV episode based on the Farrell experiment which starred actor Earl Holloman.

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Maj. Gen. Harry Armstrong, the Air Force’s second Surgeon General, was a scientist-physician who during the early years of the Air Force having become a separate service served as the commandant of the USAF School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph AFB. In 1949 he conceived the idea of creating the world’s first Department of Space Medicine at Randolph AFB and actively recruited former German Luftwaffe scientists and engineers to staff his new organization under the U.S. government’s Operation Paper Clip program.

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Dr. John Taboada in his USAF School of Aerospace Medicine laser laboratory at Brooks AFB in the mid-1960s. Dr. Taboada, a physicist for USAFSAM during his 40-year career, made one of the world’s greatest discoveries that has benefited both Air Force aviators and American citizens suffering from myopia or near-sightedness. While working under an Air Force contract to the U.S. Navy, the latter concerned about the bioeffects on submariners’ vision during a time when subs used green excimer lasers to communicate with each other while submerged, Dr. Taboada focused a green excimer laser on a rabbit’s eyes to determine how much damage would be created by the exposure. To his amazement, the excimer laser’s effects had a dramatic healing effect on the cornea of the rabbit’s eyes, which led Dr. Taboada to assume that the same effect using this type of laser could correct myopia in Air Force pilots to prolong their careers. As a result, he created photorefractive keratectomy or PRK, a procedure widely used today to correct myopia. PRK developed by Dr. Taboada led to the creation of LASIK surgery.

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Former U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine Captain Raymond Damadian stands with his research assistant next to the world’s first MRI medical scanner that he invented, dubbed Indomitable, now part of the Smithsonian Institution collection in Washington, D.C. The Nobel Prize-nominated physician-scientist credits the Air Force at Brooks AFB for allowing him the opportunity to experiment with magnetic resonance imaging in 1965, then used only in laboratory studies to image inorganic substances. During a bioeffects study on a rabbit, Dr. Damadian discovered another use for MRI that was superior to x-ray technology, the latter not capable of imaging soft tissue masses such as breast cancer tumors. He left the Air Force in 1967, invented the world’s first recumbent MRI medical scanner and founded the FONAR Corporation in New York where he has since invented and sold variations of his invention to include the world’s first stand-up MRI.

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Published Dec. 22, 2020
Air Education and Training Command

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas –

In episode 41 of "The Air Force Starts Here" podcast we look back in history at the Air Force’s role in space here with AETC History and Museums Program Director, Gary Boyd, and AETC historian Rudy Purificato.

Randolph Air Force Base has a history steeped in space innovation, which all occurred in Building 661. Building 661 was home to the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine and inaugurated the world’s first Department of Space Medicine in 1949.

While there, many space firsts occurred like the first simulated flight to the moon, training of the first primates to go into sub-orbit and orbit, as well as the development of pressurized and heat-resistant space suits.

Enlisted contributions to space also started in Building 661 in 1958, with Airman Donald Farrell, who volunteered to be sequestered inside a research chamber nicknamed “Terrella 1” for a simulated flight to the moon. “Terrella 1” can be seen free of charge at the Airman Heritage Museum at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.

The U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine started at Brooks Air Force Base and moved to Randolph. It moved back to Brooks in 1959, where it resided until 2011 when Brooks closed and the school moved to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. However, according to Boyd, the pioneering work that started at Randolph Air Force Base laid the foundation of what we know of Space today.

Space history continues in Texas as the first seven enlisted Guardians graduated from Basic Military Training at JBSA-Lackland on Dec. 10, 2020. BMT is conducted through Air Education and Training Command. AETC provides world-class training and education for our Airmen and Space Professionals to prepare them to adapt, decide, and act at the speed necessary for current competition and future combat. Airmen who are properly trained, educated and developed will accelerate change and out-think and out-perform adversaries.

Building 661 is now home to AETC/A9.

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

Space History ties to Randolph Air Force Base

The Air Force Starts Here - Ep 41 - Randolph AFB and Space History