page_title: United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine
section_title: The second Texas Chapter
hierarchical_section_title: United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine / History / The second Texas Chapter
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of the USAFSAM main building (building 775) used from 1996 - 2011.
context_page_description: The United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine is the United States Air Force organization focused on education, research, and operational consultation in aerospace and operational medicine. USAFSAM was founded in 1918 to conduct research into the medical and physiologic domains related to human flight, and as a school for medical officers trained to support military aviation operations, later coined as flight surgeons. The school supported early military aviation from World War I through the evolution of aviation and into the modern era. USAFSAM conducted medical research and provided medical support for the initial US space operations beginning in 1947 through the establishment of NASA in 1958. After the creation of NASA, USAFSAM continued to actively support civilian and military manned space missions through clinical and physiologic research. USAFSAM is one of the oldest continually operating school for flight surgeons and other operational medical personnel of its kind in the world. USAFSAM is located in Dayton, Ohio at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and is part of the 711th Human Performance Wing and the Air Force Research Laboratory.
context_section_description: The first Primary Course in Aviation Medicine was held at the new campus on Brooks AFB 11 August 1959.
  On 8 August 1961 the School name was changed to The School of Aerospace Medicine.
  On 21 November 1963, President John F. Kennedy dedicated the new school complex at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas the day before he was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  This was Kennedy's last official act as president and the location of his famous cap over the wall speech inviting the nation to embrace space exploration.
  Frank O'Connor, the Irish writer, tells in one of his books how, as a boy, he and his friends would make their way across the countryside, and when they came to an orchard wall that seemed too high and too doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue, they took off their hats and tossed them over the wall--and then they had no choice but to follow them.  This Nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it. Whatever the difficulties, they will be overcome. Whatever the hazards, they must be guarded against. With the vital help of this Aerospace Medical Center, with the help of all those who labor in the space endeavor, with the help and support of all Americans, we will climb this wall with safety and with speed-and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side.
  In 1996 a new School-house on Brooks Air Force Base was completed (building 775).
caption: USAFSAM from 1996 through 2011. Building 775 located on Brooks AFB
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