posted 06-16-2004 06:28 PM               

"We were told [Ruff is speaking here of the working group on the 1959 selection process: Dr. George Ruff, Dr. Edwin Levy, Dr. Robert Voas, Allen Gamble, and related personnel at the AMRL] by NASA Management [he's referring to the Selection Committee] that we were not to choose the people who were going to get involved [in spaceflight]. They [the Selection Committee]would do that on the grounds of the requirements for the mission. We were simply to identify any people we think were risky from a psychiatric standpoint. That is exactly the perspective from which we were operating. Originally, NASA intended to choose twelve individuals to become astronauts, eventually they actually chose seven."

This figure of "twelve astronauts," incidentally, agrees with the contemporaneous account written by Rene Carpenter (in a letter to her mother in law)and quoted in For Spacious Skies.

Santy's cite for the Ruff quotation is Patricia A. Santy, ed., "The NASA In-House Working Group on Psychiatric and Psycnological Selection of Astronauts: Summary and Transcripts." (unpublished paper).