Insights Into History: Episode 2 "The Fuge" (AUDIO)

Thirty-one point two five G. For five seconds. This episode tells the story of R. Flanagan Gray’s ride in the Johnsville Centrifuge — "The Fuge" — a fifty-foot arm inside a 125-foot chamber that could push humans toward forty G to test the limits of pilots and early astronauts.

We trace the site’s unlikely roots from Brewster carriage and aircraft works to the Naval Air Development Center, explore how the centrifuge turned brutal physics into usable science and training, and follow the facility’s decline and rebirth today as a preserved landmark and event venue.