Fascinating correspondence archive of Dr. William K. Douglas, a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who, on April 1, 1959, was selected as the personal physician for America’s first astronauts, the ‘Mercury Seven.’ Douglas was the astronauts’ physician for the next three years, working out of Florida's Patrick Air Force Base for the Office of the Assistant for Bioastronautics at the Air Force Missile Test Center. His daily pattern of life would simulate that of the seven astronauts and he would endure much of the rigorous testing they were subjected to, leading some to call him the ‘eighth astronaut.’ Dating to the early and mid-1960s, this archive contains over 100 TLSs between Douglas and a wide array of his colleagues from various aerospace and American military branches.
The archive is highlighted by five TLSs from Douglas, three TLSs from Robert R. Gilruth (the first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center), two TLSs from Charles A. Berry (Director of Life Sciences at NASA), and an amusing TLS from Mercury astronaut John Glenn in May 1964. Also included are signed letters from publishers, journalists, and writers like Henry R. Luce and John Dille of Time and Life magazines, Ken Weaver of National Geographic, and USC Professor Shirley Thomas, who wrote the eight-volume series Men of Space. The bulk of the archive is comprised of letters from Douglas’s fellow physicians and military brethren, with the majority offering messages of support and congratulations on Douglas’s promotion of colonelcy in August of 1966 or on the success of the Mercury flights, which are broadly referenced.
Perhaps most interesting of the myriad Mercury-related letters are those addressing pilot Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton, who, on March 15, 1962, two months before the launch of the Mercury-Atlas 7 mission, was medically disqualified from the flight due to symptoms of atrial fibrillation; he was replaced on the mission by Scott Carpenter. Douglas was opposed to this decision and disagreed with several of his medical colleagues regarding Slayton’s grounding; his stance ultimately led to the nonrenewal of his NASA detail. In Slayton’s autobiography, published posthumously, he wrote that Douglas ‘and everybody else had agreed that it should have no effect on my status whatsoever. Everything was noted down in my records, and that was that.’
Other notable correspondents include: Hubertus Strughold (‘The Father of Space Medicine’), Roger Lewis (CEO of General Dynamics), flight surgeon Raymond Yerg, biophysicist Norman J. Holter, physiologist Otto H. Gauer, rocket scientist Edward R. Van Driest, aerospace medicine specialist William Miller Helvey, aerospace medicine pioneer Don Flickinger, NASA chemist and engineer Richard S. Johnston, NASA physicians George M. Knauf, Edward J. McLaughlin, Frank B. Voris, Karl E. Schaefer, Ashton Graybiel, James P. Henry, and many others. In overall fine condition, with slight scattered edge wear and creases.
Accompanied by numerous carbon copies of Douglas’s typed replies, many of which contain excellent, insightful content. One example from March 8, 1962, addressed to Dr. John C. Vanatta of the University of Texas, regards “the objects which Lt. Colonel Glenn noted during the flight of MA-6,” a reference to the famous ‘fireflies’ Glenn saw outside of his Friendship 7 capsule.
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