These men became known to history as the Gallaudet Eleven.
Deaf subjects having a chat before their zero-gravity flight.
This is the same sort of sickness passengers feel on a ship on rolling seas.
Of the eleven men chosen, all but one had become deaf due to childhood spinal meningitis.
However, lack of hearing was not the only criteria for selection.
Endurance of motion was what mattered most.
Harry Larson stands in a 20-foot slow rotation room.
In another experiment, one subject was locked in a chamber and was gradually deprived of oxygen.
He was asked to write his name repeatedly until it became a scribble.
Another subject was made to stand for six hours straight, while researchers took photos of his eyes.
Another had to draw his own blood while spinning in a centrifuge pod.
Each night the men slept with their heads toward the center like spokes on a wheel.
John Zakutney is lowered down into a centrifuge pod.
Navy/Personal collection of David Myers
Some were tested for weightlessness on zero-gravity flights, commonly called vomit comets.
Others were sent to Nova Scotia to ride the choppy waters of the Atlantic.
The deaf subjects felt nothing.
Jerald Jordan described one such flight.
There was a doctor sitting, facing me while I rode backwards, and the pilot did aerobatics.
Nothing happened, of course, except I had a great time.
This knowledge proved invaluable in preparing astronauts for future space flights.
Donald Peterson prepares for a test in a centrifuge.
Photo: Gallaudet University Archives
A test subject inside a centrifuge pod.
