Victor Prather
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Lt. Cdr. Victor A. Prather Jr. (June 4, 1923 – May 4, 1961) was a flight surgeon famous for taking part in "Project RAM", a government project to develop the space suit.
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[edit] Life
Prather was born on June 4, 1926, to Victor Prather Sr. and Gladys May Furse in Bethesda, Maryland. He attended Tufts College in 1941, and became part of the V-12 program there from 1943 to 1945. He graduated from Tufts in 1945 and then attended Tufts University School of Medicine, graduating there in 1952.
In 1954, he rejoined the U.S. Army. He worked as a surgeon aboard the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La (CV-38) near Morocco until 1957, when he returned to the United States. He then completed courses in aviation medicine and served in Pensacola, Florida from 1957 to 1958, and then in Honolulu, Hawaii from 1959 to 1960.
[edit] Project RAM
In 1960, he was transferred to Project RAM, a government program to test prototype space suits, at the Bethesda Naval Research Institute. He was commissioned to test how the suits worked underwater, and later commissioned to see how the suits would function at extremely high altitudes.
[edit] The jump
On May 4, 1961, Prather, along with Cdr. Malcolm Ross, ascended to an altitude of 113,720 feet (34,668 meters) in a gondola and a large plastic balloon from the USS Antietam (CV-36). They ascended for nine hours, until reaching their record-breaking altitude. From where they jumped, they were exposed to temperatures as low as −70 °C (−94 °F) and air pressure below 0.1 pound per square inch (700 Pa). Their weights were doubled by their gear, making it almost impossible to move.
They fell at speeds near the speed of sound. It took them about fifteen minutes to fall, before deploying their parachutes at around 10,000 feet (3,000 m). They both fell into the Gulf of Mexico, where rescue teams awaited. Ross climbed up the ladder to the helicopter first. Prather followed, but unfortunately Prather slipped off of the ladder and fell back into the sea. Since he thought he was out of danger, he had opened up his helmet before climbing up the ladder. When he fell back into the water, he could not swim due to the weight of his suit, and water was coming in through his open helmet. He sank to the bottom and drowned in his suit.
[edit] After the jump
Shortly after Prather's death, President John F. Kennedy phoned Prather's widow, Virginia Merritt, and she arrived at the White House with her children, Marla Lee Prather and Victor A. Prather III. Her husband was then posthumously awarded the Navy Distinguished Flying Cross for 'heroism and extraordinary achievement'.
In 1963, Meritt remarried to Allen Childs and had two children with him, Colbey and Lon.
