Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant commander (also hyphenated lieutenant-commander and abbreviated Lt Cdr, LtCdr. or LCDR) is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander. The corresponding rank i ...
Victor Alonzo Prather Jr. (June 4, 1926 – May 4, 1961) was an American
flight surgeon
A flight surgeon is a military medical officer practicing in the clinical field of aviation medicine. Although the term "flight surgery" is considered improper by purists, it may occasionally be encountered.
Flight surgeons are physicians ( MD ...
famous for taking part in "Project RAM", a government project to develop the
space suit
A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, ...
. On May 4, 1961, Prather drowned during the helicopter transfer after the landing of the
Strato-Lab V balloon flight, which set an altitude record for manned balloon flight which stood until 2012.
Life
Prather was born on June 4, 1926, in
Lapeer, Michigan
Lapeer ( ') is a City (Michigan), city in the U.S. state of Michigan and is the county seat of Lapeer County, Michigan, Lapeer County. As of the United States Census, 2010, 2010 census, the city population was 8,841. Most of the city was incorporat ...
, to Victor Prather Sr. and Gladys May Furse. He attended
Tufts College
Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...
in 1943, and became part of the
V-12 program stationed in
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...
from 1943 to 1945. He returned to Tufts at the end of
WWII
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and attended
Tufts University School of Medicine
The Tufts University School of Medicine is the medical school of Tufts University, a Private university, private research university in Massachusetts. It was established in 1893 and is located on the university's health sciences campus in downto ...
, graduating there in 1952.
In 1954, Prather rejoined the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
in the
Navy Medical Corps
The Medical Corps of the United States Navy is a staff corps consisting of military physicians in a variety of specialties. It is the senior corps among all staff corps, second in precedence only to line officers. The corps of commissioned office ...
. He was stationed in
Pensacola
Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal ci ...
and then transferred to
San Diego, CA
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
. While at San Diego, Prather completed courses in
Aviation Medicine
Aviation medicine, also called flight medicine or aerospace medicine, is a preventive or occupational medicine in which the patients/subjects are pilots, aircrews, or astronauts. The specialty strives to treat or prevent conditions to which aircr ...
and qualifications in fixed wing and
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
aircraft. He was stationed as a medical doctor aboard the aircraft carrier
USS ''Shangri-La'' until 1957, when he was assigned to the U.S. Naval Air Station in
Port Lyautey, Morocco
Kenitra ( ar, القُنَيْطَرَة, , , ; ber, ⵇⵏⵉⵟⵔⴰ, Qniṭra; french: Kénitra) is a city in north western Morocco, formerly known as Port Lyautey from 1932 to 1956. It is a port on the Sebou river, has a population in 201 ...
as Flight Surgeon for VR-24. In 1959, Prather was reassigned to the Bethesda Naval Hospital in
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in ...
.
Project RAM
In 1960, Prather was transferred to Project RAM, a government program to test
prototype
A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...
space suits
A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, ...
, at the
Naval Medical Research Institute
The Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC) is an agency that performs basic and applied biomedical research to meet the needs of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. Its areas of focus include study of infectious diseases, biodef ...
in
Bethesda,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. He was commissioned to test how the suits worked
underwater, and later commissioned to see how the suits would function at extremely high
altitude
Altitude or height (also sometimes known as depth) is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context ...
s.
The flight
On May 4, 1961, at 7:08 am, Victor Prather, along with
Cdr. Malcolm Ross, ascended in
Strato-Lab High V from the flight deck of the
USS ''Antietam'' (CV-36) to an altitude of to test the Navy's
Mark IV full-pressure suit.
The balloon, built by
Winzen Research Inc. of
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
, was constructed of polyethylene plastic only thick. The balloon envelope was the largest that had ever been successfully launched, expanding to in diameter when fully inflated. Beneath the balloon hung a large parachute and then the gondola. To control temperature, the gondola was protected by special
venetian blinds
A window blind is a type of window covering. There are many different kinds of window blinds which use a variety of control systems. A typical window blind is made up of several long horizontal or vertical slats of various types of hard mater ...
, but otherwise open to space. Balloon, parachute, gondola, and a trailing antenna made a craft close to tall.
The primary objective of the flight was to test the Mark IV full-pressure suit. The suit was manufactured by
B. F. Goodrich
The Goodrich Corporation, formerly the B.F. Goodrich Company, was an American manufacturing company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded in Akron, Ohio in 1870 as Goodrich, Tew & Co. by Benjamin Goodrich, the company name was ch ...
of neoprene and weighed only . The Mark IV suit overcame problems of weight, bulk, ventilation, air and water tightness, mobility, temperature control, and survival capabilities so well that
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
selected a modified version for use by the
Project Mercury
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
astronauts. Malcolm Ross and Victor Prather were exposed to temperatures as low as when they passed at 8:10 am. Strato-Lab V reached maximum elevation of at 9:47 am, where the temperature was and the
air pressure
Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The Standard atmosphere (unit), standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equival ...
was . At that altitude without a space suit, a person would lose consciousness in seconds. The May 4 flight was the most severe test of the Mark IV suit that was ever conducted.
The flight lasted 9 hours 54 minutes and covered a horizontal distance of . As they descended, the balloonists opened their face masks when they reached an elevation where they could breathe. Strato-Lab V landed at 4:02 pm in the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
. The mission plan was to use a boat to retrieve the balloonists in the event that the gondola landed in the water instead of on the flight deck of the carrier. This had been rehearsed. However, without orders to do so, the crew in a hovering
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
lowered a hook. Commander Ross invited Prather to go first, but he declined. Ross stepped into the hook contrary to proper procedure and slipped partially out of it, but he was able to recover without falling completely into the water. A few minutes later, when a hook was lowered to retrieve Prather, he stood on a float attached to the gondola and grasped the rescue line. When he stepped into the hook, the trailing foot pushed the gondola away, and he fell backwards three feet into the water. The helicopter crew assumed that the flight suit was watertight, which it would have been if the face plate was still closed, and did not effect an immediate rescue. Because the face plate was open, Prather's flight suit flooded, and he drowned before Navy divers could rescue him.
After the flight
Shortly after Prather's death, President
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
phoned Prather's widow, Virginia Merritt, and she arrived at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
with her children, Marla Lee Prather and Victor A. Prather III. Kennedy posthumously awarded Victor Prather the Navy
Distinguished Flying Cross for 'heroism and extraordinary achievement'. The balloonists were also awarded the 1961
Harmon Trophy
The Harmon Trophy is a set of three international trophies, to be awarded annually to the world's outstanding aviator, aviatrix, and aeronaut (balloon or dirigible). A fourth trophy, the "National Trophy," was awarded from 1926 through 1938 to t ...
for Aeronauts. The altitude record for a manned balloon flight set by Prather and Ross in 1961 is still officially recognized by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. three balloonists have traveled higher into the stratosphere.
Nicholas Piantanida, claimed to have reached with his Strato Jump II balloon on February 2, 1966, and
Felix Baumgartner
Felix Baumgartner (; born 20 April 1969) is an Austrian skydiver, daredevil and BASE jumper. He is widely known for jumping to Earth from a helium balloon from the stratosphere on 14 October 2012 and landing in New Mexico, United States, as par ...
, reached 128,100 feet (39 044.88 meters) on 14 October 2012 as part of the
Red Bull Stratos
Red Bull Stratos was a high altitude skydiving project involving Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner. On 14 October 2012, Baumgartner flew approximately into the stratosphere over New Mexico, United States, in a Gas balloon, helium balloon befor ...
project. In ballooning, as in mountain climbing, completing the descent by the same method is required to set a record. Piantanida did not claim the balloon altitude record because he jettisoned his balloon at the flight ceiling and returned to Earth in the gondola without the balloon.
Similarly Baumgartner jumped at the apex of his flight.
The third person,
Alan Eustace
Robert Alan Eustace (born 1956/1957) is an American computer scientist who served as Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google until retiring in 2015. On October 24, 2014, he made a free-fall jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix Baum ...
, reached an altitude of where he then performed a supersonic jump in 2014.
See also
*
Flight altitude record
This listing of flight altitude records are the records set for the highest aeronautical flights conducted in the atmosphere, set since the age of ballooning.
Some, but not all of the records were certified by the non-profit international avia ...
*
Manned balloon altitude records
*
Malcolm Ross
Notes
References
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Record Page for the flight*
*
*
External links
John F. Kennedy: Remarks on Presenting the Harmon TrophiesThursday, October 18, 1962 (The American Presidency Project)
article by Gregory Kennedy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prather, Victor
1926 births
1961 deaths
American aviation record holders
American balloonists
Balloon flight record holders
Deaths by drowning
Flight altitude record holders
Harmon Trophy winners
Military personnel from Michigan
People from Lapeer, Michigan
Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States)
Tufts University School of Medicine alumni
United States Navy officers
Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1961