Animal studies of the subgravity state during rocket flight.

I N T H E I R D I S C U S S I O N of man under gravity free conditions, Gauer and Haber G were the first to suggest that subgravity might lead to interesting physiological effects. They did not anticipate direct disturbances of respiration and of the circulation. However, they thought that the conflict between normal visual observations and the changed impulses from the labyrinth and proprioceptive apparatus might eventually lead to disturbances in performance and even to motion sickness. At the time the), proposed this, no practical means for producing the weightless state was available. Subsequently, Haber and Habeff pointed out that this condition could be briefly reproduced by an aircraft or rocket which followed a ballistic trajectory. I f the vehicle follows a course in which the horizontal velocity is constant and a downward acceleration exactly equaling the earth's gravity is developed, then no support is provided to objects within it and they become essentially weightless. Throughout the period that a high altitude research rocket coasts to its Presented at the Twenty-third Annual Meeting of the Aero Medical Association, Washington, D. C., March 17-19, 1952. This paper should be read in conjunction with those appearing in the Space Medicine Section in the August issue. Unfortunately, it was received too late to include with the other papers.