Arthur B. "Art" Guntner Naval Air Development Center Collection

Photographs of Naval Corpsman Arthur B. "Art" Guntner and his career working with the Johnsville Centrifuge at the Aviation Medical Acceleration Laboratory of the Navy Air Development Center Warminster. Capable of generating 40Gs, the Centrifuge was used throughout the early American space program for many different scientific simulations and experiments purposes including as a part of the training of every Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronaut.

Born and raised in the mining town of Morgantown, West Virginia, Arthur B. "Art" Guntner joined the Navy in 1958 and graduated from Aerospace Medicine School in 1960. Immediately after graduation, he began as an Aerospace Medicine Technician assigned to the Aviation Medical Acceleration Laboratory at the Johnsville Naval Air Development Center. U.S. Navy's Johnsville Naval Air Development Center (NADC) in Warminster, Pennsylvania was home to 30 different laboratories in the 1950s and 1960s. In the Aviation Medical Acceleration Laboratory, the largest human centrifuge was constructed from 1947 to 1949 and operated in researching the limits of human tolerance for "G" forces. By late 1959, training and research focused on preparing the first Americans for space flight. Given their full schedules, the Mercury astronauts weren't present for early runs or "flights" on the centrifuge. Younger staff members, therefore, served as the test subjects for the initial simulations. While working at Johnsville, Guntner flew over 350 flights in the centrifuge, tested the design of G-suits, and participated in many other classified experiments. He was personally involved in the briefing and training of the Mercury astronauts.