After the Second World War the Air Force acquired the talents of a number of scientists who had done much remarkable research on the medical aspects of high-speed, high-altitude airplane flight for Germany's Luftwaffe. Most of these German physicians, physiologists, and psychologists were brought to the expanding Aeromedical Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, near Dayton, Ohio.  The Aeromedical Laboratory would be transferred to WADC with WADC's creation in 1951.

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A team of researchers headed by Major Edward L. Brown used the relatively slow, propeller-driven C-131 transport in their studies. A parabola in a C-131 gave only 10 to 15 seconds of weightlessness, but the spacious interior of the cargo carrier made it possible to observe the reactions of several subjects simultaneously, including their coordination and locomotion and even their ability to walk along the ceiling while wearing shoes with magnetic soles.

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The centrifuge, the other laboratory tool used by students of acceleration-deceleration patterns, became increasingly useful in the fifties. The basic feature of the centrifuge was a large mechanical arm with a man-carrying gondola or platform mounted on the end, within which a test subject would be rotated at high angular velocities. Centrifuge experiments had more immediate pertinence to space medicine than impact sled tests, because on the "wheel" investigators could duplicate the relatively gradual buildup of g forces encountered during the launch and reentry portions of ballistic, orbital, or interplanetary flight. In the fifties, centrifuges existed at several places in the United States. The best-known and most used were at the Navy's Aviation Medical Acceleration Laboratory, Johnsville, Pennsylvania, and at the Aeromedical Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. During the decade, researchers at Johnsville, Wright-Patterson, and elsewhere simulated a wide variety of acceleration and deceleration profiles, using an almost equally wide variety of body positions and support systems, to compile an impressive quantity of data on the reactions of potential space pilots to heavy g forces.

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In 1952, E. R. Ballinger, leader of the research program at Wright-Patterson, conducted one of the earliest series of centrifuge tests directed expressly toward the problem of g forces in space flight. Ballinger found that 3 g applied transversely would be the ideal takeoff pattern from the physiological standpoint, but he realized that the rocket burning time and velocity for such a pattern would be insufficient to propel a spacecraft out of the atmosphere. Consequently he and his associates subjected men to gradually increasing g loads, building to peaks of 10 g for something over two minutes. Chest pain, shortness of breath, and occasional loss of consciousness were the symptoms of those subjected to the higher g loads. The tests led Ballinger to the conclusion that 8 g represented the acceleration safety limit for a space passenger.

Ballinger's results were summarized in WADC TR 52-250, entitled Effect of prolonged acceleration on the human body in the prone and supine positions.

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The problem of determining optimum body position and support was vigorously attacked by biodynamicists during 1957 and 1958. A series of especially careful studies on the Wright Air Development Center centrifuge indicated that when the subject was positioned so that the g forces were applied transversely and backward to the center of rotation, breathing became easier. Acceleration-deceleration patterns of 12 g for 4 seconds, 8 g for 41 seconds, and 5 g for 2 minutes were endured without great difficulty by practically all the volunteer subjects, some having even higher tolerance limits.

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The students of g forces tried various support devices in the late fifties in their search for ways to increase human tolerance to acceleration and deceleration loads. One specialist in the Wright-Patterson centrifuge group came up with a suit of interwoven nylon and cotton material, reinforced by nylon belting, and attached to the pilot seat at six places to absorb the g loads and distribute them more evenly over the entire body. Later, Wright-Patterson scientists using a nylon netting arrangement in conjunction with a contour couch were able to expose several men to a peak of 16.5 g for several seconds without any discoverable adverse effects.

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During 1957-1958 scientists at the Wright Air Development Center also carried out water-immersion studies, using a coffin-like container.

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The psychological data from the early space cabin simulator tests, as well as observation of subjects in the isolation chamber at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, were not encouraging. Major Charles A. Berry, an Air Force physician who later would work closely with the astronauts in Project Mercury, perhaps expressed the consensus among space medicine investigators by 1958: "The psychological problems presented by the exposure of man to an isolated, uncomfortable void seem to be more formidable than the physiological problems."

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On October 9, only five days after Sputnik I, the Ad Hoc Committee of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board urged the development of "second generation" ICBMs that could be used as space boosters, proposed the eventual accomplishment of manned lunar missions by the Air Force, and recommended the launching of Air Force satellites for reconnaissance, communications, and weather prediction purposes as soon as possible. A few days later, Secretary of the Air Force James H. Douglas appointed a committee of 56 academic and corporate scientists and Air Force officers, headed by the eminent but controversial nuclear physicist Edward N. Teller, to "propose a line of positive action" for the Air Force in space exploration. Not surprisingly, the Teller Committee in its report of October 28 recommended a unified space program under Air Force leadership.

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Then, on December 10, 1957, Lieutenant General Donald L. Putt, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff, Development, set up a "Directorate of Astronautics" for the Air Force. Brigadier General Homer A. Boushey, who sixteen years earlier had piloted the first rocket-assisted aircraft takeoff in this country, became head of the new office. The move quickly met opposition from Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy, who was chary about any of the services using the term "astronautics," and from William M. Holaday, newly appointed Defense Department Director of Guided Missiles, whom the New York Times quoted as charging that the Air Force wanted to "see if it can grab the limelight and establish a position." The furor within the Defense Department caused Putt to cancel the astronautics directorate on December 13, only three days after its establishment.

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In any Air Force push into astronautics, NACA presumably would play a key role as supplier of needed research data. The agency had done this for nearly four decades in aeronautics. Proceeding on this premise, Putt wrote NACA [74] Director Dryden on January 31, 1958, formally inviting NACA's participation in a man-in-space program with the Air Force, including both the boost-glide research airplane, soon to be dubbed Dyna-Soar, and "a manned one-orbit flight in a vehicle capable only of a satellite orbit. . . ." Dryden promptly approved NACA cooperation on the first approach, although the research agency and the Air Force would not sign their formal agreement on the subject until the following May. Regarding the satellite project offer, however, Dryden informed Putt that NACA was working on its own designs for a manned space capsule and would "coordinate" with the Air Force late in March, when NACA completed its studies.

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Behind NACA's apparent reluctance to follow the Air Force lead into manned satellite development was a conviction, held by some people at NACA Headquarters, but mainly by administrators and engineers of the Langley and Lewis laboratories, that the agency should broaden its activities as well as its outlook. Moving into astronautics, NACA should leave behind its historic preoccupation with research and expand into systems development and flight operations - into the uncertain world of large contracts, full-scale flight operations, and public relations. NACA should, in short, assume the leadership of a new, broad-based national space program, having as one of its principal objectives to demonstrate the practicability of manned space flight.

So in the 10 months between the first Sputnik and the establishment of a manned space program under a new agency, NACA would follow a rather ambivalent course. On one hand it would continue its traditional research and consultative capacity, counseling the Air Force on space flight proposals and imparting its findings to industrial firms. But at the same time ambitious teams of engineers here and there in the NACA establishment would be preparing their organization and themselves to take a dominant role in the Nation's efforts in space.

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On January 23, 1958, the Senate Preparedness Investigating Committee under Senator Lyndon B. Johnson had summarized its findings in 17 specific recommendations, including the establishment of an independent space agency. During these months of debate and indecision, the military services continued their planning of space programs, both in hope of achieving a special role for themselves in space and in knowledge that U.S. planning could not simply stop during the months it took to settle the organizational problem.

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On January 29, 30, and 31, 1958, ARDC held a closed conference at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, where 11 aircraft and missile firms outlined for Air Force and NACA observers the various classified proposals for a manned satellite vehicle that they had submitted to ARDC during November and December 1957.

After the Wright-Patterson conference, the Air Force stepped up the pace of its manned-satellite studies. On January 31, ARDC directed the Wright Air Development Center to focus on the quickest means of getting a man in orbit. The center was to receive advice from the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in Los Angeles on selection of a booster system. A few weeks later the center issued a purchase request, valued at nearly $445,000, for a study of an internal ecological system that could sustain a man for 24 hours in an orbiting capsule.

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On February 7, 1958, Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy, acting on President Eisenhower's instructions, ordered the creation of an Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) to manage all existing space projects. Roy W. Johnson, a vice-president of General Electric, took over the directorship of this new office; Director of Guided Missiles Holaday transferred some of his responsibilities to the agency.

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On February 27, ARDC officers briefed General Curtis E. LeMay, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, on three alternative approaches to manned orbital flight: developing an advanced version of the X-15 that could reach orbital velocity; speeding up the Dyna-Soar project, which eventually was supposed to put a hypersonic glider in orbit; or boosting a relatively simple, nonlifting ballistic capsule into orbit with an existing missile system, as proposed by Avco, McDonnell, and other companies. LeMay instructed ARDC to make a choice and submit a detailed plan for an Air Force man-in-space program as soon as possible.

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While the Air Force pushed its manned satellite investigations and its development work on the Thor, Atlas, and Titan, the Army and the Navy initiated  manned space studies of their own in addition to accelerating their ballistic missile efforts with the Jupiter and the Polaris, respectively. Flushed with the success of the Explorer I satellite launching in January, the Army reached the apex of its astronautical prestige. Proud of the prowess of von Braun's rocket team at its Army Ballistic Missile Agency, Huntsville, Alabama, the Army sought a major role in military space technology. Since the Army already had lost operational responsibility for its Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile to the Air Force, a space mission was vitally important to its future in astronautics. Central to the Army's space plans was securing authorization, priority, and abundant financing from the Defense Department for one of von Braun's pet ideas, a clustered-engine booster vehicle with more than a million pounds of thrust.

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In response to Vice Chief of Staff LeMay's instructions of February 27 and the apparent receptiveness of Defense Department officials to the Air Force's astronautical plans, the Air Research and Development Command moved to "firm up" its plans for manned space flight. On March 8, the Ballistic Missile Division proposed an 11-step program aimed at the ultimate objective of "Manned Space Flight to the Moon and Return." Then, on March 10, 11, and 12, ARDC staged a large conference at the offices of its Ballistic Missile Division in Los Angeles.

The conference focused on what some Air Force speakers called a "quick and dirty" approach - orbital flight and recovery using a simple ballistic capsule and parachutes for a water landing in the vicinity of the Bahamas. The ballistic vehicle would weigh between 2,700 and 3,000 pounds, and would be about six feet in diameter and eight feet long. Its "life support," or internal ecological, system would be designed to sustain a man in orbit for as long as 48 hours. Because there was no real certainty that man could function under the various stresses of space flight, all systems in the capsule would be fully automatic.

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The Air Force flight physicians knew that German centrifuge experiments during the Second World War had proved that men could withstand as much as 17 g for as long as 2 minutes without losing consciousness. Nevertheless, numerous centrifuge runs at Wright-Patterson and at Johnsville, Pennsylvania, and calculations of the angle of entry from an orbital altitude of about 170 miles had convinced them that a 12-g maximum was a good ground rule for designing the capsule body-support system. With a continuously accelerating single-stage [81] booster following a steep launch trajectory, an aborted flight and subsequent reentry might subject the rider to as much as 20 g. Consequently the Air Force specialists assumed that a two-stage launch rocket would be necessary to provide a shallower reentry path and lower forces.

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On March 14, a month and a half after Putt's letter to Dryden, NACA officially informed Headquarters USAF that it would cooperate in drawing up a detailed manned satellite development plan. On April 11, Dryden sent to General Thomas D. White, Chief of Staff of the Air Force, a proposed memorandum of understanding declaring an intention to set up a "joint project for a recoverable manned satellite test vehicle." Before a final agreement was actually signed, however, NACA Assistant Director for Research Management Clotaire Wood, at Dryden's direction, suggested to Colonel Donald H. Heaton of Headquarters USAF that the NACA-Air Force arrangement "should be put aside for the time [82] being." Heaton agreed, and in mid-May the joint Air Force-NACA manned space undertaking was tabled indefinitely.

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By April 1958 a total of 29 bills and resolutions relating to the organization of the Nation's space efforts would be introduced by members of the Congress. Almost everyone assumed that some sort of thorough-going reform legislation, probably creating an entirely new agency, was needed if the United States was to overcome the Soviet lead in space technology.

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On April 2, Eisenhower sent his formal message on space matters to Congress. The document again indicated the President's intense conviction that space should be primarily reserved for scientific exploration, not military exploitation. It called for the establishment of a "National Aeronautical and Space Agency," which would absorb NACA and assume responsibility for all "space activities . . . except . . . those projects primarily associated with military requirements."

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The general prudence of NACA in dealing with the Air Force on space matters in the spring of 1958 lay in the contents of the space bill sent by the Eisenhower administration to Capitol Hill on April 14 and then being debated in Congress. This proposal appeared likely to transform NACA into the focal point of the nation's efforts in space.

From the initial discussions in 1954 of a United States International Geophysical Year satellite project, President Eisenhower's position had been that space activities should be conducted solely for peaceful purposes. The nature and objectives of Project Vanguard had reflected this policy. He summed up his feelings in a letter to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, dated January 12, 1958. Describing the demilitarization of space as "the most important problem which faces the world today," he proposed that -

. . . outer space should be used only for peaceful purposes. . . . can we not stop the production of such weapons which would use or, more accurately, misuse, outer space, now for the first time opening up as a field for man's exploration? Should not outer space be dedicated to the peaceful uses of mankind and denied to the purposes of war? . . .

Consistent with this "space for peace" policy, the concentration on February 7, 1958, of Federal space activities in the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Defense Department had been only an interim measure pending establishment of a new, civilian-controlled space management organization.

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Throughout most of April, representatives from the various offices within ARDC, forming a "Man-in-Space Task Force" at the Ballistic Missile Division, worked on an "Air Force Manned Military Space System Development Plan." The final goal was to "achieve an early capability to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth." The first of four phases, called "Man-in-Space-Soonest," involved orbiting a ballistic capsule, first carrying instruments, then primates, and finally a man. In the second phase, "Man-in-Space-Sophisticated," a heavier capsule, capable of a 14-day flight, would be put in orbit. "Lunar Reconnaissance," the third phase, would soft-land on the Moon with instruments, including a television camera. The last phase was "Manned Lunar Landing and Return," wherein primates, then men, would be orbited around the Moon, landed on its surface, and returned safely. The whole undertaking was supposed to cost $1.5 billion, a level of financial support that should complete the program by the end of 1965. The Thor-Vanguard, the Thor with a fluorine upper stage, and a "Super Titan" topped by fluorine second and third stages would be the launch vehicles.

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The main trouble was the high cost of mating the intermediate-range Thor with 117L and Vanguard second stages, developing an entirely new rocket with a fluorine powerplant, and carrying out perhaps as many as 30 development flights before trying to orbit a manned capsule. Late in May, Air Force Under Secretary MacIntyre and Assistant Secretary Richard E. Horner suggested that making the Atlas a carrier for manned flight might cut program costs below the $100 million mark. ARDC then had its Ballistic Missile Division prepare an alternative approach for Man-in-Space-Soonest. The BMD answer was that using the Atlas would mean reducing the orbital altitude of the 2,000-3,000-pound capsule from about 170 miles to about 115 miles. This in turn would mean that voice contact would be lost for long periods unless more orbital tracking stations were built around the globe. Despite these reservations, on June 15, the Ballistic Missile Division sent to Washington a revised development plan for orbiting a man in an Atlas-boosted ballistic capsule by April 1960 at a total cost of $99.3 million. The next day ARPA gave its approval to the revised "Soonest" plan and authorized the Air Force to proceed with study contracts on the life support system of the proposed manned capsule. The Wright Air Development Center let two concurrent three-month study contracts, at $370,000 each, to North American Aviation and General Electric, which were to design the space cabin and ecological mechanisms and build "mockups" - full-scale working models - of the capsule interior.

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By late June, with the reworked version of the space bill proposed by the Eisenhower administration almost ready to be voted on in Congress, it was apparent that the Air Force was in much more of a hurry to hurl a man into orbit than was ARPA. The new Defense Department agency remained reluctant to commit heavy financing to a project that might well be abandoned or transferred when the civilian space organization proposed by Eisenhower came into existence.

Into July, ARPA continued to hold back adequate "go-ahead" funds for a full-fledged Air Force effort to send a manned vehicle into orbit.

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Throughout the spring and into the summer of 1958, as the administration bill made its way through Congress, NACA had given its full participation and support to the man-in-space planning sessions of ARPA and the Air Force. But at the same time the research engineers at Langley and on Wallops Island were pushing their own studies. They could see the opportunity to carry out a manned  satellite project coming their way. By early spring all NACA laboratories were urgently engaged in basic studies in such areas as propulsion, spacecraft configuration, orbit and recovery, guidance and control, structures and materials, instrumentation, and aerodynamic heating. Ames and Langley researchers were conducting wind tunnel experiments and rocket launches with models of orbital vehicles.

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By early July 1958, there actually seemed to be an inverse relationship between the Air Force's progress on Man-in-Space-Soonest and the progress of the space bill through Congress. On July 10, Brigadier General Homer A. Boushey of Headquarters USAF informed the Air Research and Development Command that the Bureau of the Budget was firmly in favor of placing the space exploration program, including manned space flight, in the proposed civilian space organization. Nothing could be done to release further go-ahead funds from the Advanced Research Projects Agency.

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Only a little more than three months after the Eisenhower administration's draft legislation went to the Capitol, both houses of Congress on July 16 passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Despite this long-expected action, there still seemed to be a chance for Man-in-Space-Soonest, provided it could be carried out at a relatively modest cost.

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Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law on July 29, 1958. His action brought into being an organization to "plan, direct, and conduct aeronautical and space activities," to "arrange for participation by the scientific community in planning scientific measurements and observations," and to "provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof" - in short, to guide the Nation into the Space Age. Space activities related to defense were to continue in the DOD.

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, absorbing more than 8000 employees and an appropriation of over $100 million from NACA, was beginning to take shape. Under the terms of the Space Act, accompanying White House directives, and later agreements with the Defense Department, the fledgling agency acquired the Vanguard project from the Naval Research Laboratory; the Explorer project and other space activities at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (but not the von Braun rocket group); the services of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, hitherto an Army contractor; and an Air Force study contract with North American for a million-pound-thrust engine, plus other Air Force rocket engine projects and instrumented satellite studies. In addition, NASA was to receive $117 million in appropriations for space ventures from the Defense Department. But the Space Act was silent regarding organizational responsibility for manned space flight.

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Besides Man-in-Space-Soonest of the Air Force, there were two other manned military space ventures seeking approval from ARPA in the summer of 1958. A rather heated competition was underway among the three armed services in the area of manned space flight. The Army's entry, much simpler than the Air Force approach, was supposed to lift a man into the space region "sooner" than Soonest. The manned capsule would reach an altitude of approximately 150 miles before splashing into the Atlantic about the same distance downrange from Cape Canaveral. The passive passenger would be housed in an ejectable cylindrical compartment about four feet wide by six feet long, which in turn would be housed in an inverted version of the kind of nose cone used on the Jupiter IRBM.

Still a third military proposal for manned space flight came forth during the contentious first half of 1958. In April the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics presented to ARPA the results of its manned satellite study, cleverly acronymized "MER I" (for "Manned Earth Reconnaissance"). This approach called for an orbital mission in a novel vehicle - a cylinder with spherical ends. After being fired into orbit by a two-stage booster system, the ends would expand laterally along two structural, telescoping beams to make a delta-wing, inflated glider with a rigid nose section.

By December, however, Project Mercury already was moving ahead steadily under NASA. Funds for a MER III phase (model studies) were not forthcoming from the Defense Department, and the intriguing MER concept became a little-known aspect of the prehistory of manned orbital flight.

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MER, sometimes referred to as "Project MER," was by far the most ambitious of the manned space flight proposals made by the military in 1958. Its emphasis on new hardware and new techniques meant it really had little chance for approval then. Conversely, Project Adam was not ambitious enough for the time and money involved. Of the three military proposals, Man-in-Space-Soonest came closest to full program approval. But by August the Air Force's hopes for putting a man into orbit sooner than the Soviet Union, or than any other agency in this country, were fading rapidly before the growing consensus that manned space flight should be the province of the civilian space administration.

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Some time between then and August 20, probably on August 18, Eisenhower made his decision. He assigned to NASA specific responsibility for developing and carrying out the mission of manned space flight. This decision provided the coup de grace to the Air Force's plans for Man-in-Space-Soonest. Deputy Secretary of Defense Quarles decided the $53.8 million that had been set aside for various Air Force space projects,  including Man-in-Space-Soonest (but not Dyna-Soar), would constitute part of the $117 million to be transferred from the Defense Department to NASA.

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After August 1958, however, the project to rocket into orbit a man in a ballistic capsule was under undisputed civilian management, although it would draw heavily on all three services as well as industry and universities.

On Tuesday afternoon, September 30, more than 8,000 people left work as employees of the 43-year-old NACA. The next morning almost all of them returned to their same jobs with NASA.

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