The Deaf Right Stuff: Disability, Space Sickness, and the Making of the American Astronaut, 1955–1968

Between 1955 and 1968, a group of deaf volunteers participated in a range of human experiments for the US space program. Overseen by Dr. Ashton Graybiel, these tests sought to provide a better understanding of the human vestibular system located within the inner ear and its relation to space adaption syndrome, or “space sickness.” This article argues that this deaf experimental labor was defined by a dual process of scientific construction and social transformation. The top-down view of the experimenters was one of physiological fascination: Deaf bodies with lack of vestibular function exhibited a remarkable immunity to space sickness. But, in spite of this, Graybiel and his team never considered the possibility of a deaf astronaut; they sought to replicate this deaf immunity to motion sickness in the familiar military test pilot norm. Offsetting the exclusionary scientific confinement of deaf bodies to the category of “labyrinthine defectives,” this article also centralizes the volunteers’ own bottom-up perspectives. Through participating in this grueling research, these deaf volunteers found a transformative way to tap into the culturally celebrated ideal of the American astronaut. In doing so, they enacted a form of “somatic citizenship” that allowed them to circumvent some of the societal and medical barriers barring them from more conventional forms of national service during the Cold War. Ultimately, shedding light on this unexplored case study reveals yet more “hidden figures” of the US space program and calls for greater scholarly attention to be paid to disability within histories of spaceflight.