dsc31956.jpg

The sign accompanying the couch. It reads

John Glenn Training Couch

Astronauts in Project Mercury, the first U.S. human spaceflight program, experienced very strong "g" forces during acceleration into space and deceleration during reentry into the atmosphere—up to 11 times Earth's gravity. To better withstand these forces, each astronaut had special form-fitted couches made for their bodies. This couch was used by John H. Glenn Jr., the first American to orbit the Earth, for "g" training in the centrifuge at the Naval Air Development Center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania, from 1959 to 1962.

To create the couch, a plaster cast was made of the astronaut's body in a sitting position, then that form was used to make the couch out of fiberglass.

Transferred from NASA Manned Spacecraft Center
A19680293000