posted 07-01-2025 08:02 PM               

Donald G. Farrell, a retired product supervisor at Bethlehem Steel, will be held Tuesday at 10 a.m. at St. John's Roman Catholic Church, 13311 Long Green Pike in Hydes. Mr. Farrell, who was 54 and lived in Phoenix, died Friday at Greater Baltimore Medical Center after a long illness.

Born in New York, Mr. Farrell joined the Air Force in 1954 and was awarded the Commendation Ribbon in 1958 for staying a week in a space cabin simulator at the USAF School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas.

After being discharged from the Air Force, Mr. Farrell attended Boston University and earned his Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical engineering and management in 1962. Mr. Farrell began working for Bethlehem Steel in 1962 and retired in 1984 due to failing health.

He is survived by his wife, the former Judith E. Mount, and a daughter, Heidi McKenna of Kirkland, Wash.

posted 07-02-2025 12:28 AM               

After housing at Randolph AFB near San Antonio, on 10 May 1957, the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of the New School of Aviation Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.

In October 1954 USAFSAM took delivery of a sealed cabin simulator for space research. The simulator modeled the inside of a space vehicle and was built to study humans in a closed ecological system at simulated heights of 80,000 feet and above. Experiments were conducted in the simulator beginning in January 1956 leading to Airman Donald F. Farrell remaining enclosed in the simulator for 7 continuous days in February 1958. Following the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the U.S. pursued both civilian and military crewed space programs with the USAF tasked with the military effort. In July 1958 the USAFSAM Department of Space Medicine was reorganized as the Division of Space Medicine with 4 Departments.

The USAF focused on plans for a military space station, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL). The MOL was designed to be an earth-orbiting space station and would use a modified Gemini capsule attached to a cylinder-shaped laboratory. The MOL missions were planned to be up to 30 days. The MOL never launched a space mission, but the USAFSAM MOL studies of man in space for extended periods of time in preparation for MOL missions were used by NASA. It contained a Manned Orbiting Laboratory simulator. There were 90 MOL related research projects conducted at Brooks before the cancellation of the program in 1969.

The information gleaned from these experiments contributed to the Apollo program and some equipment resulting from the MOL studies were later flown on Skylab during 1973 and 1974. And much of the work in space food, radiation studies, space cabin atmospheres, and pressure suits were adopted by NASA during the Gemini and Apollo missions. The MOL program was canceled in 1969 to reduce defense spending. Both the military and civilian crewed space programs resulted in major expansion of the research facilities and capabilities at the Brooks Aeromedical Center.