The Patient Was…

The patient was an eighty-something-year-old woman whom I saw only on a small video monitor, but what I saw alarmed me.

I was visiting the Ames Research Center near Palo Alto, California, where my former medical residency training colleague was Chief of Physiologic Training. The dream and reality of space travel were still in their infancy  —  John Glenn had orbited the earth but Neil Armstrong had yet to walk on the moon  — at the time of my encounter.

When I entered the area where the monitors were located, my friend and a number of his associates were gathered around a small video screen. I pushed forward and greeted my colleague who barely acknowledged me with a small wave, while he scrutinized the image in front of him. I looked at what he was watching, and was appalled to see an elderly woman, strapped into a sort of chair, who was clearly having a stroke: one side of her face was distorted, pulled to the side and drooping.

The patient was enclosed in a sort of capsule attached to the end of a long arm of a centrifuge that was whirling around in a cavernous room that was much like an airplane hangar. Nobody but me seemed to be distressed at her appearance.

“Stop that thing,” I yelled. “She’s having a stroke!”

“No, she’s fine,” said my friend. “The test is over anyway. And by the way, it’s good to see you. Glad you made it here.”

The centrifuge had stopped and the woman was unstrapped from her chair, removed from the capsule and laid on a gurney. As it rolled by the monitoring station, she still showed the distorted facial features of a stroke.

“Look at her,” I implored. “She has certainly had a stroke.”

“I know,” said my friend, “but it was a long time ago.”

“So, what is she doing here?  And what are you doing?” I asked.

The explanation floored me. It seems that as the idea of space travel became a reality, there was enormous scientific interest as you could imagine. Among the many interested parties was an elderly Nobel prize-winning physician, who wanted to perform some medical experiments in space. The concern wasn’t the experiments, which were a secondary matter.  There was another more fundamental issue to be resolved: Was it safe for an elderly person to go up in a space capsule at all?

The value of learning whether elderly people could safely travel into space might well be argued, especially at that time. One would think that other priorities would take precedence in the scientific and geopolitical race for space.  But, when a lauded Nobelist makes a request, it carries weight.

My friend, in his role as Chief of Physiologic Training, was assigned to find the answer as to whether the elderly could safely participate in space travel. The first problem was to find volunteers among elderly people, willing to subject themselves to the effects of so-called G- forces (gravitational forces: the forces of gravity or acceleration on a body). Without much expectation, the doctor placed notices in local community newspapers and handouts. To his and his colleagues’ astonishment, there was an overwhelming response. Many elderly people, including some in nursing and retirement homes, apparently wanted to do something more and different with their lives. After screening volunteers, several were selected for testing in the large centrifuge at the Research Center that simulated gravitational forces experienced during space travel. Even some people with prior illnesses, such as the woman with the stroke whom I had observed, were chosen.

Perhaps the fact that elderly people volunteered for what could have been a dangerous experience should not have come as such a surprise. It is known, for example, although not widely so, that elderly people who had undergone certain types of cataract surgery volunteered to serve on U. S. warships in the Pacific during WWII, as part of a secret communication network. These individuals, by virtue of their eye condition, could detect ultraviolet signal lights used to send coded signals along the coasts of Japanese-held islands.

After extensive testing of a number of the elderly volunteers in the large centrifuge, it was determined that it was, indeed, safe for elderly people to experience the G-forces associated with space travel. In fact, they showed less changes in some crucial vital signs than younger subjects did. Age seemed to favorably modify physiological responses to changes in the forces of gravity and acceleration.

When the results were fully analyzed, the report was submitted to the elderly Nobel-winning scientist whose interest had started the whole thing.

It was safe to go into space, the scientist was told.

The Nobelist’s response was essentially: Are you nuts? Are you crazy? I have no intention of doing it!