Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB, TX: Hail and Farewell

Abstract

With the impending termination of USAF operations at Brooks Air Force Base (AFB) in San Antonio, TX, it is time to consider its historic role in Aerospace Medicine. The base was established in 1917 as a flight training center for the U.S. Army Air Service and in 1926 became home to its School of Aviation Medicine. The school moved to San Antonio's Randolph Field in 1931, but in 1959 it returned to Brooks where it occupied new facilities to support its role as a national center for U.S. Air Force aerospace medicine, including teaching, clinical medicine, and research. The mission was then expanded to encompass support of U.S. military and civilian space programs. With the abrupt termination of the military space program in 1969, research at Brooks focused on clinical aviation medicine and support of advanced military aircraft while continuing close cooperation with NASA in support of orbital spaceflight and the journey to the Moon. Reorganization in the 1990s assigned all research functions at Brooks to the Human Systems Division and its successors, leaving to USAFSAM the missions related to clinical work and teaching. In 2002 the USAF and the city of San Antonio implemented shared operation of Brooks as a "City-Base" in the hope of deflecting threatened closure. Nevertheless, under continuing pressure to consolidate military facilities in the United States, the 2005 Base Closure and Realignment Commission ordered Brooks closed by 2011, with its aerospace medicine functions relocated to new facilities at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH.