Before NASA could send humans to space, the agency needed to better understand the effects of prolonged weightlessness on the human body.

In the late 1950s, NASA and the U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine established a joint research program to study these effects and recruited 11 deaf men aged 25-48 from Gallaudet College, now Gallaudet University.

Today, these men are known to history as the “Gallaudet Eleven,” and their names are Harold Domich, Robert Greenmun, Barron Gulak, Raymond Harper, Jerald Jordan, Harry Larson, David Myers, Donald Peterson, Raymond Piper, Alvin Steele, and John Zakutney.

Larson and Myers of the “Gallaudet Eleven” joined Dr. Lackner and Dr. Reschke to discuss their experiences in this special presentation at Space Center Houston.