Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour,

really happy to have you here.

All right, so he was discharged from the US Air Force

in 1959 after heroic service, frankly,

heroic and unusual service.

You'll see what I mean from this headline

that ran about him in Ebony magazine in May 1959.

GI risks death 65 times for science.

These images are from a documentary

by the Jacksonville Historical Society,

they're credited to the US Air Force,

and these images are real-time images of him

in the late 50s at service in the Air Force,

and they show some of what he went through

as part of his service.

His name was Alton Yates.

He's 23 years old in these pictures,

he was an Airman second class in the US Air Force,

and what you see him doing here is participating

in important testing that was conducted

for the US space program.

They were using airmen in the US Air Force

...