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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's Friday and time for StoryCorps. In the 1950s, Alton Yates was just a teenager when he helped send humans into space. He told his daughter, Toni, it all started just after his mother died.
ALTON YATES: My dad was trying to raise the seven of us by himself. And I knew that as soon as I finished high school, I was going to have to help with taking care of the family.
TONI YATES: How did you know he needed your help?
A YATES: Well, he came home from work, then he rolled cigarettes, he roasted peanuts and put them in little bags, and then he left home immediately to sell those products, and I just couldn't stand to see him continue to do that. There weren't any good paying jobs just out of high school, so I decided to join the Air Force. And a call had gone out for volunteers to determine the effects of space travel on the human body. So I became one of the human guinea pigs who rode high-speed rocket sleds.
T YATES: How old were you when you did the first test?
A YATES: I was 19. When the sled took off, it was almost as if everything in your body was being forced out through your back. And then when it stopped, it was like driving an automobile at a hundred miles an hour and running into a stone wall.
T YATES: But yet you did that 65 times.
A YATES: I did it more than 65 times. And let me tell you, there was something about the group of volunteers. I remember one when they took him off the sled, he was like a dishrag. The rest of us saw what happened to him, but we were anxious to get strapped into that seat to conduct the next experiment. We went up to Johnsville, Pennsylvania. They had a huge centrifuge up there. We rode that thing at high speeds, and you had your hand on a little trigger. And the minute you started to black out, your hand would come off the trigger, and that would stop the centrifuge.
T YATES: Did your dad know what you were doing (laughter)?
A YATES: He didn't know initially, but Ebony Magazine published an article that showed pictures of some of these rocket sleds that I had been riding. When my dad got a copy of that magazine, he took that everywhere he went. And I think to make my father proud of me was something that I've always wanted to do. And I was able to do that before he passed away.
T YATES: The day that man went into space, what was that like for you?
A YATES: I felt a warmth that came over my body when I heard the countdown. And even to this day, every time there's a lift-off, I think a little piece of me lifts off with each one of those missions.
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MARTIN: Alton Yates retired from the US Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel. He is also celebrated as a civil rights leader in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. We first heard Yates' StoryCorps conversation with his daughter, Toni, in 2014. Their interview is archived at the Library of Congress. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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