SAAAHOF 2020 Honorees
The United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) is the United States Air Force (USAF) organization focused on education, research, and worldwide operational consultation in aerospace and operational medicine. USAFSAM was founded in 1918 to conduct research into the medical and physiologic domains related to human flight, and as a school for medical officers trained to support military aviation operations, later coined as flight surgeons. The school supported early military aviation from World War I through the evolution of aviation and into the modern era. USAFSAM conducted medical research and provided medical support for the initial US space operations beginning in 1947 through the establishment of NASA in 1958. After the creation of NASA, USAFSAM continued to actively support civilian and military manned space missions through clinical and physiologic research. USAFSAM is the oldest continually operating school for flight surgeons and other operational medical personnel of its kind in the world. It began operations on January 19,1918 at Hazelhurst Field, Mineola, Long Island, NY. In August 1926 the School was moved to Brooks Field in San Antonio and in October 1931 it was moved to Randolph Field. On 10 May 1957, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of the New School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks AFB. The first Primary Course in Aviation Medicine was held at the new campus on Brooks AFB on 11 August 1959. On 8 August 1961 the School name was changed to The School of Aerospace Medicine. On 21 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy dedicated the new school complex at Brooks AFB (the photo is of JFK on that day speaking with airmen in a pressure chamber) the day before he was assassinated in Dallas. This was Kennedy’s last official act as president and the location of his famous over the wall speech inviting the nation to embrace space exploration, in which he said: In 2005 the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) ordered the removal of the Air Force mission from Brooks City Base and the activation of the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio but the facilities at Brooks still exist and are currently being operated by KBRWyle where to this day the US Navy Blue Angels and other US and foreign civilian and military pilots still receive some of their training.
June Scobee Rodgers, Ph.D.
Col. Thomas M. McNish, M.D. MPH (USAF Ret.)
United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB, Texas
Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no choice but to follow them. This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against. With the vital help of this Aerospace Medical Center, with the help of all those who labor in the space endeavor, with the help and support of all Americans, we will climb this wall with safety and with speed-and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side.