A LOOK BACK: KAPPA HISTORY
physical fatigue which often pre- ceded a fatal aircraft crash. These findings earned him an Air Force Commendation Medal. He was also awarded a medal for develop- ing an oxygen mask tester, later adopted by the Air Force, which encouraged air crew members to clean their masks frequently. In addition to the Air Force Commen- dation Medal, his stalwart work on crew comfort and fatigue earned him other awards and honors: • Army Commendation Medal; • Air Force Commendation Ribbon; • William Alonzo Warfield Award, Howard University Due to his military flight service and rank as a chief flight surgeon, Marchbanks joined the Project Mercury space program in 1960. This was during the very early days of the NASA. In his new position, he attended aerospace lectures, studied astronaut’s medical history, and visited space flight tracking stations located around the world. In 1962, as the head physician for the Mercury Project, he monitored the late astronaut John Glenn’s historic flight three times around Earth in the spacecraft Friendship 7. Responsible to evaluate the effects of space flight on man, he accumulated key medical data on the astronauts before, during and after their flights. He moni- tored Glenn’s respiration, pulse, temperature, and heart reactions through electronic sensing devices attached to the astronaut and set up to relay the information to ground recorders. Using recorded data from previous Glenn’s flight history, Marchbanks compared Glenn’s practice mission electro- cited for his noteworthy con- tribution to aviation medical research. NASA and the Mercury project
cardiograms with the actual ones recorded during the mission. He was relieved to note normal trac- ings throughout the flight. After retiring from the Air Force in 1964, Marchbanks served as the chief of environmental health ser- vices with United Aircraft Corpora- tion from 1964 to 1986 where he assisted in the design of space suits and the monitoring systems for the Apollo program.
Marchbanks had a lesser known but equally significant achievement that impacts future generations of people of color and the possibility of space travel. He conducted a ground-breaking study on sickle cell anemia. Marchbanks chal- lenged the military’s policy on sickle cell anemia, an inherited disease, primarily affecting people of African and Mediterranean descent. Prior to Marchbanks’ study, when the Air Force dis- covered the sickle cell trait in the blood of healthy service members, they were discharged. The result was all persons identified with the
Sickle Cell anemia
After his numerous achievements in the military and in NASA,
Publishing achievement for more than 100 years
THE JOURNAL SUMMER 2017 | 139
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