The Dr. Sherman Vinograd Aerospace Exploration Papers: Part 2!

Last year, for the anniversary of NASA’s founding (July 29^th, 1958, if you’re curious), we wrote a few words about Dr. Sherman Vinograd and his papers here at the Southwest Collection. We love the collection so much that a couple of months ago we also installed an exhibit that will be on display until around January 2015. It details his career and many significant accomplishments. This turned out to be a timely installation, as the good Dr. passed away on September 1, 2014.

In case you didn’t check out the previous blog (and you should!), Dr. Sherman P. Vinograd served as NASA’s Director of Medical Science and Technology from the fall of 1961 until the spring of 1979. In those 18 years he led NASA’s most fruitful medical, engineering, and vehicle development research relating to manned space flight. Among his many accomplishments was the establishment of the In-flight Medical Experiments Program, which evaluated human responses to extended space flight. Its experiments focused on sensory deprivation, which in Dr. Vinograd’s words “inspired” some of his staff to hypothesize that astronauts would hallucinate “little green men” when deprived of all sight, sound, and hearing. Fortunately, no one ever came close to hallucinating, proving the resilience of the human mind and body.

As most folks know, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin of the Apollo 11 mission became the first humans to walk on the moon. The years of medical research, planning, and engineering that led to this triumph began in part with the scientific efforts of Dr. Vinograd and his team. As you can see above, they devised an elaborate but compact Environmental Control System that efficiently regulated and recycled all oxygen, water, and sanitation on board the cramped lunar module. Look closely: they recycled everything. Everything. One way or the other, Apollo 11 made the Dr. “very, very happy,” and he also heaped praise on the “astronauts…and that support crew that they had” who did all the heavy lifting to make it possible. It was, he summarized, “the pinnacle accomplishment of the century.”

Another highlight of Dr. Vinograd’s career revolved around “Star City,” an area in Moscow Oblast, Russia, which since the 1960s is home to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC.) Named for the famed Russian who was the first human to journey into outer space, the GCTC saw years of collaboration between the U.S. and Russian scientists that ultimately resulted in 1975’s Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. That flight was not only the final Apollo and U.S. space mission until the arrival of the space shuttle, but also punctuated the end of the “space race” in which the two superpowers had been locked since 1957. It also resulted in awesome bi-lingual textbooks like the one above, of which we boast a complete set in both Russian and English!

Finally, one of the Dr.’s most impressive programs was the Integrated Medical and Behavioral Laboratory Measurement System (IMBLMS). Before lengthy space flights could occur, physicians had to determine if blood circulation, breathing, and even the ability to swallow food were affected adversely by zero gravity. The Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab programs all relied heavily on IMBLMS’ experiments to ensure the safety of the astronauts.

To see all of Dr. Vinograd’s good stuff, check out his exhibit if you’re out our way in Lubbock, Texas. Or to see his papers in their entirety, don’t hesitate to contact our trusty Reference Staff! They’d also be happy to provide you with the papers of NASA Commander Rick Husband, leader of the ill-fated space shuttle Columbia mission. Husband, in fact, will be getting his own exhibit at the SWC in Spring 2015, which we encourage you to visit.

The Man who Helped Make NASA: Dr. Sherman P. Vinograd

On July 29, 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act creating NASA. In the fifty-five years since, NASA has accomplished incredible feats. The Southwest Collection is fortunate to house the papers of Dr. Sherman P. Vinograd, the former Chief of Medical Science and Technology Director of Biomedical Research at NASA from 1961 to 1979.

Dr. Vinograd and his NASA colleagues convene with their Russian counterparts in 1973 in Star City, Moscow (now the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center).

Entitled the Sherman P. Vinograd Aerospace Exploration Papers, 1957-2010 and undated, the collection encompasses over twenty boxes of correspondence, financial materials, newspapers, photographs, printed materials, and reports, as well as artifacts and books. These items chronicle Dr. Vinograd’s early life, his early career as an M.D., his years as a physician and researcher at NASA, and the other professional organizations and projects in which he was involved both during and after these periods. The finding aid for this collection is available through Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO), as well as through the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library’s website.

Glass data slides displaying the medical results of NASA’s early manned spaceflight program.

Dr. Vinograd served at NASA from the fall of 1961 until the spring of 1979. During those eighteen years he led the way through that department’s most fruitful medical research and engineering, vehicle development, and manned space flight. Among his many accomplishments was the establishment of the In-flight Medical Experiments Program in preparation for the Apollo missions. This program designed flight crew studies to evaluate human responses to spaceflight. Dr. Vinograd’s team also developed a supportive Research and Development Program that gathered and provided pertinent ground-based data that lead to the creation of NASA’s state-of-the-art medical measurement technology. Prominent among these creations is the Integrated Medical and Behavioral Laboratory Measurement System (IMBLMS). It produced the medical experiments conducted aboard the Gemini, Mercury, Apollo, and Skylab manned space flight programs. Carried aboard virtually all post-Apollo space vehicles by virtue of its rack and module design, the type of equipment used in these experiments was still used years later. Space-based research was not the limit of his work. He also fostered the continuing ground-based medical research program essential to NASA’s successes in ensuing decades, the documents for which can also be found in his papers.

His greatest achievement was conceptualizing, establishing, and chairing the Space Medicine Advisory Group (SPAMAG), which was charged with defining the earth-based and space-based research and life-support requirements for a manned orbiting research laboratory. This Group designed a carefully planned study utilizing highly qualified, specialized members of the scientific community. They postulated an orbiting laboratory designed according to the needs of future human flight crews. This resulted in the creation of Skylab.

Interested researchers may contact our Reference Department via email or by phone at 806-742-9070.