Do You Have "The Right Stuff"? NASA's Selection Process Experiments: Information Perception... in a Centrifuge?

When I was thinking of an information related experiment, I’m not sure why this came to mind, but I immediately thought of the book The Right Stuff (and the film adaptation). Tom Wolfe's pop-sociology account of the early days of the NASA space program documents the kinds of experiments that their scientists conducted as part of the selection process to determine if potential Mercury program astronauts were fit for space travel. Whenever I think of positivistic interpretations of The Scientific Method and highly structured observational research techniques, I think of Cold War-era experiments that were conducted in the service of the American military-industrial-(congressional complex). 

Potential astronaut candidates were selected for physical and mental testing. Their health, vision and hearing were examined along with their tolerance to noise, vibrations, gravitational forces, isolation and heat. They were tested to see if they could perform their tasks under confusing and arduous conditions. For example, as part of the gravitational force (g-force) training, candidates were subjected to acceleration-induced g-forces in a centrifuge device. One scene from The Right Stuff depicts this kind of g-force experiment where candidates Gordon Cooper and Alan Shepard (who ultimately became astronauts) are tested for g-force tolerance. The human body has difference tolerances for g-forces depending on the acceleration direction. If certain thresholds are exceeded, individuals can lose vision on even lose consciousness. Cooper and Shepard had to complete manual tasks while being subject to a range of g-forces in the centrifuge. 

Therefore, in this case the independent variable was the range of g-force levels produced with the centrifuge; the dependent variable would be the ability of the astronaut candidates to complete the manual tasks as a proxy for being able to withstand g-forces (receiving information sequences in the form of light signals and turning switches off accordingly); and the main control would be conducting the experiment at the level of gravity that is present on earth. Other controls included the sample of potential candidates itself. Only those who met a specific set of criteria were selected for further physical and mental testing. For the initial Mercury program, the candidates had to be active duty military test pilots. So this excluded women. They also had to fall within a certain age range, height range and have a college degree in science or engineering. The U.S. government already had a good idea of the star pilots that they wanted for the program.

Consent for participating in the selection process as part of the application procedures for the NASA program was obviously voluntary. But at the same time, there was a strong moral imperative to serve the nation-state among the selected candidate and willingness to submit to extreme conditions with potentially dire consequences in that pursuit. So, that being said about the characteristics of the sample, even if a given astronaut was able to perform the manual tasks and not pass out — does this say more about their ability to withstand g-forces or rather, is it more representative of their willingness to ignore potentially hazardous health consequences in a desire to fulfill expectations of the nation-state and a host of other psychological motivators? Borrowing the words of Wolfe, we need to consider how these particular candidates wanted to show that they could "push the envelope" to get to the "top of the ziggurat" and prove that they in fact did have "the right stuff" to defeat the nebulous Communist threats of the Cold War era via their contributions to the space race.

Davidson and Layder speak to the complex nature of human subjectivity in their discussion with respect to the Milgram experiment in that it is impossible to separate human experience into separate, independent variables by holding a situation constant and manipulating one so-called independent variable to observe its effects (p. 160). Similarly to the difficulty in disentangling the independent variables in Milgram's investigation of a person’s willingness to obey an authority figure, the Mercury program candidates' beliefs about the legitimacy of authority figures, purpose of the orders being given, and about the consequences of obedience cannot be separated from the act of testing their ability to carry out tasks while being able to withstand g-forces (ibid., pp. 160-2). In the case of the Mercury program, the sample of candidates were culled from a military context and had already presumably proven to have an inclination for being able to follow orders and generally not act in an insubordinate manner in specific social contexts. The candidates were conscious actors, but they are also subjects who's behaviour was thought by the scientists (or hypothesized) to exist within a certain normative range as it relates to willingness to follow commands and serve the nation... So do those traits become... controls? Another scene from The Right Stuff proves that those behaviour traits could not be considered control variables and were also dependent variables. While Cooper is able to endure and even fall asleep when subjected to a three-day long sensory deprivation experiment, his unsuccessful counterpart breaks under the pressures when locked in the same chamber and exposed to the barrage of heat, light, and noise. Therefore, in this instance (as well as the g-force experiment) NASA was testing the psychological make-up of candidates by subjecting a controlled sample of candidates to a range of stimuli that they consented to being exposed to.

Wolfe, Tom. (1981[1973]). The Right Stuff. Toronto: Bantam Books