The Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Bioastronautics and the Exploration of Space by Roadman, Charles H., Strughold, Hubertus and Mitchell, Roland B - 1968

Springfield, Virginia: Aerospace Medical Division, United States Air Force, Brooks Air Force Base, Texas. Clearinghouse for Federal, Scientific and Technical Information, 1968. First edition.

1968 SYMPOSIUM ON AMERICAN AEROSPACE MEDICINE ONE YEAR BEFORE AMERICANS LANDED ON THE MOON--SIGNED BY THE 3 EDITORS.

9 1/4 inches tall hardcover, publisher's ivory cloth binding, decorative cover with title and staff of Asclepius surrounded by symbols for 9 planets, signed on front free endpaper by the 3 editors, i-xiii, 620 pp, many illustrations in text, light soiling to covers, very good in custom archival mylar cover. CONTENTS include Harold C. Urey on evolution of atmospheres and oceans, Alberto Hurtado on evolutionary adaptation to life at high altitude, and Fred L. Whipple on scientific advances resulting from the space program.

CHARLES H. ROADMAN (1914 – 2000) entered active military duty with the Medical Corps in October 1940. He completed the School of Aviation Medicine in 1941, and entered flying training and received his pilot wings in 1942. During World War II, he assisted in the development of the Central Pilot Instructor's School, and actively instructed both in the flying and ground school phases. In September 1946 he was assigned to the School of Aviation Medicine as chief of the Preventive Medicine Division, with subsequent assignments as director of operations and executive officer. In November 1961 General Roadman was assigned director, Aerospace Medicine, Manned Spaceflight, NASA, where he was responsible for the planning, programming, and implementation of all medical development and medical support for Projects Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and the Manned Lunar Landing Program. He received the Missileman Badge for duty performed with NASA. In July 1963 General Roadman was assigned to Headquarters Air Defense Command, Ent Air Force Base, Colo., as command surgeon.In May 1966 he assumed command of the Aerospace Medical Division, Brooks Air Force Base Texas.

HUBERTUS STRUGHOLD (1898 –1986) was a German-born physiologist and prominent medical researcher. In 1928 Strughold traveled to the United States on a year-long research fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation. He conducted specialized studies into aviation medicine and human physiology at the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He would also visit the medical laboratories at Harvard, Columbia and the Mayo Clinic. Strughold returned to Germany the following year and accepted a teaching position at the Würzburg Physiological Institute, eventually becoming an adjunct professor there in 1933. Beginning in 1935 he served as chief of aeromedical research for the Luftwaffe, holding this position throughout World War II. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Strughold's organization was absorbed into the Luftwaffe itself and was attached its medical service. It was renamed the Air Force Institute for Aviation Medicine, and placed under the command of Luftwaffe Surgeon-General Erich Hippke. In October 1942, Strughold attended a medical conference in Nuremberg at which SS physician Sigmund Rascher delivered a presentation outlining various medical experiments he had conducted, in conjunction with the Luftwaffe, in which prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp were used as human test subjects. Following the German defeat in May, 1945, Strughold claimed to Allied authorities that, despite his influential position within the Luftwaffe Medical Service and his attendance at the October 1942 medical conference, he had no knowledge of the atrocities committed at Dachau. He was never subsequently charged with any wrongdoing by the Allies. However, a 1946 memorandum produced by the staff of the Nuremberg Trials listed Strughold as one of thirteen "persons, firms or individuals implicated" in the war crimes committed at Dachau. In October, 1945 Strughold returned to academia, becoming director of the Physiological Institute at Heidelberg University. He also began working on behalf of the US Army Air Force, becoming Chief Scientist of its Aeromedical Center. In 1947 Strughold was brought to the United States, along with many other highly valuable German scientists, as part of Operation Paperclip. He was assigned to the US Air Force School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field near San Antonio, Texas. It was while at Randolph Field that Strughold began conducting some of the first research into the potential medical challenges posed by space travel, in conjunction with fellow "Paperclip Scientist" Dr. Heinz Haber. Strughold coined the terms "space medicine" and "astrobiology" to describe this area of study in 1948. The following year he was appointed as the first and only Professor of Space Medicine at the US Air Force's newly established School of Aviation Medicine, one of the first institutions dedicated to conducting research on "astrobiology" and the so-called "human factors" associated with manned spaceflight. Under Strughold, the School of Aviation Medicine conducted pioneering studies on issues such as atmospheric control, the physical effects of weightlessness and the disruption of normal time cycles. Between 1952 and 1954 he would oversee the building of the space cabin simulator, a sealed chamber in which human test subjects were placed for extended periods of time in order to view the potential physical, astrobiological, and psychological effects of extra-atmospheric flight. Strughold obtained US citizenship in 1956 and was appointed Chief Scientist of the NASA Aerospace Medical Division in 1962. While at NASA, Strughold played a central role in designing the pressure suit and onboard life support systems used by both the Gemini and Apollo astronauts. He also directed the specialized training of the flight surgeons and medical staff of the Apollo program in advance of the planned mission to the Moon. Following his death, Strughold's alleged connection to the Dachau experiments became more widely known following the release of US Army Intelligence documents from 1945 that listed him among those being sought as war criminals by US authorities. These revelations did significant damage to Strughold's reputation and resulted in the revocation of various honors that had been bestowed upon him over the course of his career.

ROLAND B. MITCHELL was Chief, Biological Sciences Division, Directorate of Research and Development, Aerospace Medical Division (AFSC), Brooks Air Force Base, Texas.

OPERATION PAPERCLIP was a secret program of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency after the end of World War II, in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians, such as Wernher von Braun, were recruited in Germany and taken to the U.S. for government employment, primarily between 1945 and 1959. Many were former members, and some were former leaders, of the Nazi Party. The primary purpose for Operation Paperclip was U.S. military advantage in the Soviet–American Cold War, and the Space Race. The Joint Chiefs of Staff established the first secret recruitment program, called Operation Overcast, on July 20, 1945. In November 1945, Operation Overcast was renamed Operation Paperclip by Ordnance officers, who would attach a paperclip to the folders of those rocket experts whom they wished to employ in America. In a secret directive circulated on September 3, 1946, President Truman officially approved Operation Paperclip and expanded it to include one thousand German scientists under "temporary, limited military custody". Between 1945 and 1952, the United States Air Force sponsored the largest number of Paperclip scientists, importing 260 men. The New Mexico Museum of Space History includes the International Space Hall of Fame. Three Operation Paperclip members were inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame: Wernher von Braun (1976), Hubertus Strughold (1978) and Ernst Steinhoff (1979). Several of the Paperclip scientists were later investigated because of their links with the Nazi Party during the war, leading to Strughold's removal in 2006. No Paperclip scientist was found guilty of any crime, in America or Germany.