ARIZONA: Suicide at 73,000 Ft.

Rated as a "physiological technician," Specialist 3rd Class Walter M. Moore from Anniston, Ala., was assigned to the Air Force team operating the high-altitude chamber at Davis Monthan Air Force Base near Tucson, Ariz. Each day Moore, 19, and five other jet-age airmen, like similar crews at 40 other bases, carefully nursed in-training plane crews on simulated flights into thin-air altitudes. A straight-A student in off-duty courses at the University of Arizona, Specialist Moore soon learned on his Air Force duty how altitude affects the human body. Without oxygen a man blacks out above 20,000 ft., suffers from expanding intestinal...

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